Harry and Meghan: Professor criticises ‘blatantly ludicrous’ decision to give couple major human rights award

President Obama is among those to have previously received the award

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will receive an award for their humanitarian efforts, it has been announced.

In December, Harry and Meghan will be honoured at the Ripple of Hope gala, organised by the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights foundation, with an award that has previously gone to President Joe Biden and former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

The foundation is named after President Kennedy’s younger brother, who was also known as Bobby Kennedy and was assasinated in 1968.

The award has been given to Harry and Meghan for their work through their joint non-profit, the Archewell Foundation.

However, the decision to award the accolade to Harry and Meghan has come under scrutiny.

Speaking about it, Professor David Nasaw, author of The Patriarch, which is about Bobby Kennedy’s father, Joseph Kennedy, said: “I find it somewhere between sublimely ridiculous and blatantly ludicrous. It’s absurd.”

He added: “If you look at the people who have been awarded the Robert Kennedy prize in the past – Bill and Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi [Speaker of the US House of Representatives], Bishop Desmond Tutu – and then you have to ask what are Harry and Meghan doing here?

“What in God’s name have they done to merit this? What percentage of Harry and Meghan’s wealth is going to worthy causes?”

The gala will be hosted in New York by actor Alec Baldwin and will also honour Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky.