The Distinguished Civilian Service Awards
Board is a committee that makes recommendations to the President of the United
States for people who should be considered for civil public awards from the
United States.
The history and make up of the committee are
listed below from Wikipedia.
One of the recommendations that the committee
makes is who should be considered for the Presidential Medal of Freedom, pictured to the right. The award was recently bestowed on Tiger
Woods.
Perhaps Woods is a person that should receive
the award but there are problems with the award. He is a close friend with and has business
interest with, President Trump.
Additionally, never in memory has the award given to someone that is
only part of the way through their career.
Note the following from an article about the
event from Huffington Post:
"It's unusual for a president to
give the award, widely considered to be the nation's highest civilian honor, to
a person only midway through their career. It's even more unusual for a
president to give the award to someone he's in business with.
"I can't think of something like this," Kyle C. Kopko, a professor at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania who authored a story on the award, told the New York Times on Sunday of Trump bestowing it on Woods."
In the previous blog post I did cover
how this is a problem because President Trump is enriching his own business
investment by giving the honor to Woods.
Here, I am recommending changes to the
way the award selects its Recipients.
1 The Distinguished Civilian Service Board membership should be selected by the Civil Service Commission.
2 A clear and unbiased criterion should be established for
selection of possible recipients.
3 The award should only be given to people that are recommended by
the Distinguished Cillian Service Board.
4 Any requests made by the president for awarding any honor should
be submitted to the board for review.
This would be a great way to hold the line on the president
awarding a prize to people who support him politically or are business
partners.
Sources
