Bush gives medal to George, Kopp '89, Billington '50

The medal is among the highest honors that a civilian can receive from the president and aims to honor great deeds of national service. President Bush recognized the winners at a ceremony at the White House on Wednesday.

George was recognized for bringing “forceful analytic clarity to the study of America’s ideals and institutions,” according to a statement from White House press office.

“It was an unexpected honor, and it made me very, very grateful for the opportunities that Princeton has provided me with,” George said in an interview. “My particular mission is to try to understand the relationship of virtue and freedom ... to explore a way in which rights and responsibilities are connected.”

George, the McCormick professor of jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, is also a member of the U.S. President’s Council on Bioethics and the U.S. member of the World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology.

Kopp was recognized for “creat[ing] opportunities for new teachers to help disadvantaged children realize their potential. Kopp founded Teach For America (TFA) in 1990, a project that aims to place high-quality educators in lower income neighborhoods, which grew out of her senior thesis. The national TFA network currently consists of more than 6,000 corps members and more than 14,000 alumni, according to the September article in The Daily Princetonian.

Billington has served as the librarian of Congress since 1987 and was also a University history professor from 1964 to 1973. He was recognized as “a champion of interactive and innovative technology.”

Billington created the James Madison Council, the Library of Congress’ first national private-sector advisory and support group. He championed the “American Memory” National Digital Library Program, which makes roughly 11 million American historical items from various research institutions freely available, and supervised the creation of a major bilingual website with other national libraries.