Obama awards Medal of Freedom to 16

WASHINGTON, Aug. 12 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama bestowed Presidential Medal of Freedom awards Wednesday to 16 activists, actors, athletes and other international luminaries.

At a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Obama awarded the medals to dignitaries ranging from South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu to U.S. women's tennis great Billie Jean King to former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to actor Sidney Poitier.

Saying, "The truest test of a person's life is what he we do for one another," Obama hailed the recipients as making a difference in the world as "agents of change."

The full list of recipients included breast cancer activist Nancy Goodman Brinker; Pedro Jose Greer, Jr., who founded a Miami medical clinic for the homeless; the late former U.S. statesman Jack Kemp (award accepted by his wife Joanne Kemp); Sen. Edward Kennedy, D Mass. (award accepted by daughter Kara Kennedy); and King.

Also receiving Medals of Freedom were civil rights activist Rev. Joseph Lowery; American Indian author and scholar Joe Medicine Crow - High Bird; the late gay activist and politician Harvey Milk (award accepted by his nephew Stuart Milk); O'Connor; Poitier; Broadway actress and dancer Chita Rivera; former Irish President Mary Robinson; cancer scientist Janet Davison Rowley; Tutu; Bangadeshi financier Muhammad Yunus; and physicist and author Stephen Hawking.

The award to Robinson, given for being "a trail-blazing crusader for women's rights in Ireland and a forceful advocate for equality and human rights around the world," was controversial among European Jews, who viewed her as a fierce critic of Israel while she served as U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.