Meghan and Harry human rights honour labelled ‘sublimely ridiculous’

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are to receive a prestigious human rights gong in December, the Ripple of Hope Award handed out by Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights – a nomination which left a Kennedy historian baffled. With this choice, the organisation, named after the younger brother of US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, honours work by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex through their non-profit Archewell Foundation on mental health and racial justice among other pivotal issues. Kerry Kennedy, president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, said the pair and their “willingness to speak up and change the narrative on racial justice and mental health” across the world “embody the type of moral courage that my father once called the ‘one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change’.” Meghan Markle and Prince Harry will attend the Ripple of Hope Award gala on December 6 (Image: GETTY)However, Professor David Nasaw, author of Pulitzer Prize-nominated book The Patriarch about President Kennedy’s father, described their nomination as “absurd”.He told the Mail on Sunday: “I find it somewhere between sublimely ridiculous and blatantly ludicrous. It’s absurd.”If you look at the people who have been awarded the Robert Kennedy prize in the past – Bill and Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, 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 professor added the Kennedys’ patriarch Joseph, an Irish Catholic, would be turning in his grave to see branches of his family “latching on to British Royalty”.The recipients of the Ripple of Hope Award will gather in New York on December 6.Just a few days earlier, on December 2, the Prince and Princess of Wales will be in Boston for this year’s Earthshot Prize award ceremony, of which the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation is a partner.FOLLOW THIS LIVEBLOG FOR UPDATES ON THE ROYAL FAMILYMeghan and Harry’s nomination to award baffles expert 07:53 26 mins ago07:53 Alice ScarsiA Kennedy historian hit out at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, a foundation named after the younger brother of US President John F. Kennedy, to name as recipients of the Ripple of Hope Award the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.Professor David Nasaw, author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book about President Kennedy’s father The Patriarch, told the Mail on Sunday: “I find it somewhere between sublimely ridiculous and blatantly ludicrous. It’s absurd.”If you look at the people who have been awarded the Robert Kennedy prize in the past – Bill and Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, 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?”Upon announcing them as the recipients of the gong, Kerry Kennedy, president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, said Meghan, Prince Harry and their “willingness to speak up and change the narrative on racial justice and mental health” across the world “embody the type of moral courage that my father once called the ‘one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change’.”