Release: Amb. Mary Ann Glendon to Receive 2021 AEI Irving Kristol Award
June 21, 2021
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Washington, DC (June 21, 2021) — American Enterprise Institute (AEI) President Robert Doar announced today that Mary Ann Glendon, the Learned Hand Professor of Law, emerita, at Harvard University and a former US ambassador to the Holy See, will receive the Irving Kristol Award on Wednesday, November 3, 2021, in Washington, DC.
Amb. Glendon writes on human rights, international law, comparative constitutional law, and political theory. She began teaching at Harvard Law School in 1987, after practicing law in Chicago and working as a professor at Boston College Law School. Amb. Glendon was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1991 and, in 1995, represented the Holy See at the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women. President George W. Bush later appointed her to be a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics. She received the National Humanities Medal in 2006 and in 2007 was confirmed by the Senate as US ambassador to the Holy See.
Amb. Glendon is the author of several books, including “A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (Random House, 2001). She became a mentor to Mike Pompeo when he was attending Harvard Law School, and in 2019, Secretary of State Pompeo asked her to reexamine the role of human rights in US foreign policy and appointed her chair of the newly formed State Department’s Commission on Unalienable Rights.
“We are honored to recognize Mary Ann Glendon for her work on behalf of people around the world. Her work at the intersection of law, culture, and religion has been a consistent and unrelenting force for good,” said Robert Doar.
Added Yuval Levin, AEI director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies, “Mary Ann Glendon has spent decades illuminating the dignity of the human person. As a scholar and teacher of the law, a diplomat representing our country, and an outspoken defender of the unalienable rights of all people, she has helped us see through radical ideological distortions and shallow intellectual fads to the enduring truths that make our freedom possible.”
Said Mary Ann Glendon, “I’m honored to be receiving this award from AEI, humbled when I consider the distinction of the previous honorees, and delighted that the award bears the name of the great Irving Kristol.”
The Irving Kristol Award is the highest honor bestowed by AEI, given annually to individuals who have made exceptional practical and intellectual contributions to improve government policy, social welfare, or political understanding. Established in 2002 in honor of AEI Senior Fellow Irving Kristol, the accolade replaced the Francis Boyer Award, which had been given for the previous 25 years. Previous recipients include Gerald Ford, Arthur F. Burns, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, Antonin Scalia, Dick Cheney, Alan Greenspan, Paul Ryan, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Boris Johnson, Nikki Haley, and Nicholas Eberstadt.
This event is by invitation only. For press inquiries or additional information about the award and the dinner, please contact AEI Media Services at [email protected] or 202.862.5829.
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