ABA announces 2022 Silver Gavel Awards winners

Gender violence, civil rights, legal history, cold cases, discrimination, civics, and the pursuit of justice are the focus of works being recognized by the American Bar Association’s 2022 Silver Gavel Awards for Media and the Arts. The awards acknowledge outstanding work that fosters the American public’s understanding of the law and the legal system. They are the ABA’s highest honor in recognition of this purpose.

The Silver Gavel winners are:

• “Believing: Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence,” in which author Anita Hill, through memoir, personal accounts, law, and social analysis, explores gender violence and paths to cultivate more dialogue and change.
• “Punitive Excess,” commentary about the history of America’s criminal legal system and its overreliance on mass incarceration and solutions to forge ahead.
• “My Name is Pauli Murray,” a documentary about how legal trailblazer Pauli Murray, whose ideas influenced Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s quest for gender equality and Thurgood Marshall’s civil rights arguments.
• “Black Legal History in Oklahoma: May 2021 Oklahoma Bar Journal,” a magazine issue devoted to exploring Black legal history, including articles about pioneer and new attorneys, the Tulsa Race Massacre, and segregation in higher learning institutions.
• “Un(re)solved,” a multimedia collaboration by Frontline that examines “lives cut short,” more than 150 cold cases that date back to the civil rights era.
• “The Real Damage,” a newspaper investigative story about the rate of denial of FEMA disaster aid to Black families in the South and the role that land titles play in the equation.
• “Civics 101: Supreme Court Series,” a podcast series dedicated to “improving the public’s understanding of the rule of law” and the effect that Supreme Court decisions have on daily lives.
• “A Promise to Ahmaud,” a television program that reviews the trial against the three white men accused of killing Ahmaud Arbery. It also analyzes the final guilty verdicts.

“The American Bar Association conducts an extensive review of the entrants and undertakes a deliberative process to select Silver Gavel winners and Honorable Mentions,” said Sharon Stern Gerstman, chair of the ABA Standing Committee on Gavel Awards. “We congratulate all of the 2022 awardees for their dedication and excellent work toward advancing the American public’s understanding of the law and the justice system.”

Each year the American Bar Association presents these awards to recognize work in media and the arts published or presented during the preceding year that has been exemplary in helping to foster the American public’s understanding of the law and the legal system.

ABA President Reginald Turner will present Silver Gavels and Honorable Mentions on July 12 at an in-person event at 5:30 p.m. at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The ceremony will also be live-streamed. 

Alan C. Miller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and founder and CEO of the News Literacy Project, will be the keynote speaker.