Tonight, an award show controversy. Ruth Bader-Ginsberg is, of course, a liberal icon. Her name Grace's honors from the Opperman Foundation to recognize women, women like Queen Elizabeth, Diane Von Furstenberg, and Barbara Streisand, who all previously won the award. But this year's winners are raising some eyebrows. The award was expanded to include men and women. This year's honorees include Elon Musk, Rupert Murdoch, Michael Milken, a Wall Street banker who served some time in jail, and Sylvester Stallone. They will all be receiving the RBC Award. Now, Martha Stewart will also be among those honored. And Gainsberg's children are not happy with the selections, and now want her name removed from these awards. Joining us now, James Gainsberg, the late Supreme Court Justice's son. James, thank you so much for being with us. These awards, Jim, they're intended to honor women who exemplify qualities of empathy and humility. So how did they end up with this list this year?

I haven't got a clue. You'd have to ask the people behind the Opperman Foundation that question. The original purpose of the award was, I have it right here, to recognize an extraordinary woman who has exercised a positive and notable influence on society and served as an exemplary role model in both principles and practice. And whether you wanted to discuss the wisdom of opening up that to men or not is one thing, but I think you would be hard-pressed to apply that description to people like Elon Musk and Rupert Murdoch. That's why the family is so upset, not just the children, the whole family and her clerk family. In fact, it was one of her law clerks who sent the letter to the foundation saying, Please rethink this. Of course, I've been contacted by people I know and people even that I don't know about this, saying how upset they are. My sister even got a threatening letter. And one of the things we want to do here is set the record straight. The family had nothing to do with this. We were not consulted. We are vehemently against this appropriation of our mother's name and this insult to her legacy.

Now, the Opperman Foundation has not responded to CNN's request from comment, but how do you think your mother would respond to this list of honorees?

I think she'd be appalled. I think these are people who pretty much stand against all the things that she stood for in terms of trying to bring people into the... Make the world a better place for people striving for equality and for a more inclusive world where everybody is treated with respect. I think one of our law clerks made a great analogy because I should mention that we looked at their 990, which is the form... I run a not-for-profit, so I don't know all about this. A form that a not-profit has to give the government saying, Okay, here's our purpose. Their form actually has the description of the award, almost exactly the same description as I just read you. It's a little bit like, as one of her law clerks put it, if somebody gave money to a university to build physics lab, and they built a football stadium instead. It so violates the purpose of what was intended here. And this is not what my mother signed on to when the award was first created.

And is it that you have a problem with the award being expanded to men, or is it just these men in particular?

Well, we could discuss that. But yeah, the particular awardees, and we can discuss the wisdom of each one, but the two that obviously stand out here are Elon Musk and Rupert Murdoch. When you think of trying to create a more just society, which, of course, was mom's ultimate goal, those are probably about the last names that would come to mind.

Are there any names at the top of your head that come to you who you think would have been more appropriate recipients?

Oh, I mean, there are so many. I I wouldn't want to even begin to suggest. I think previous awardees are good examples of that. But there's so many people actually trying to do good in the world. And that was the goal originally of this award was to recognize those people. I don't want to single out one over another because I would be doing an injustice to, I'm sure, all the great people out there who would be appropriate recipients. But clearly, the ones they've named are Going forward, how do you plan to rectify this to make sure this doesn't happen again next year or the year after? Well, as another famous Supreme Court Justice once said, sunlight is the best disinfectant. So we're starting. And thank you so much for having me on so that I can set the record straight. I don't want to speak to what our other plans might be if the foundation doesn't see the wisdom of desisting and ending this desecration of my mother's memory. But I will say that we will continue to fight this.

Jim Gainsberg, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you so much.