Biden Awards Medals of Freedom to Former Defense Sec. Ash Carter, Harvard Donor David Rubenstein

President Joe Biden awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Saturday to former U.S. Defense Secretary and longtime Harvard Kennedy School professor Ashton B. Carter and former Harvard Corporation fellow David M. Rubenstein.

Carter and Rubenstein are among the latest 19 recipients of the United States’ highest civilian honor, which Biden presented at a White House ceremony.

Rubenstein, a billionaire philanthropist, is a co-chair of the private investment firm The Carlyle Group, which he co-founded in 1987. Carter, who died in 2022, was a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School before he began his career at the Department of Defense. He returned in 2017 to lead the Belfer Center after serving as defense secretary under Barack Obama.

Two other Harvard affiliates — Sen. Robert F. Kennedy ’48 and World Central Kitchen founder José Andrés, who holds an honorary Harvard doctorate and helped pioneer the popular Science and Cooking course — were also recognized Saturday.

Biden cited Rubenstein’s philanthropic efforts in an announcement accompanying the award.

Rubenstein — whose net worth is currently estimated at $4 billion — has committed to donating the majority of his wealth to charitable causes.

The White House also praised his time in public service, both as counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee and as a member of Jimmy Carter’s administration.

Rubenstein, a major Harvard donor, has been heavily involved in the University’s fundraising. He chaired the Kennedy School’s 2004 capital campaign and, in 2013, became a co-chair of Harvard’s capital campaign, which raised a record $9.6 billion.

In 2004, Rubenstein donated $10 million to the Harvard Kennedy School, the largest unrestricted donation that the school had ever received. In exchange, HKS renamed its 1 Eliot St. building after him.

In 2008, Rubenstein donated $5 million to support students in a joint program between HKS and the Harvard Business School. He donated another $5 million to HBS in 2011, and — alongside his wife — contributed at least $25 million to Harvard’s capital campaign. In 2022, Rubenstein funded the construction of a conference center at Harvard’s Harvard’s Enterprise Research Center in Allston.

Rubenstein joined the Corporation, Harvard’s highest governing body, in July 2017. He sat on the board for its selections of two Harvard presidents, Lawrence S. Bacow and Claudine Gay, before leaving in May 2023.

Carter, who died unexpectedly in Oct. 2022, spent his career alternating between teaching roles at the Kennedy School and positions in the Defense Department.

“A scientist turned Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter was a true patriot,” the White House said in a statement read at Saturday’s ceremony. “His integrity and mentorship inspired a generation of Americans to serve and protect our nation with honor and dignity.”

Ashton B. Carter delivers a 2011 address at the JFK Jr. Forum. Carter was posthumously granted the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Saturday. By Anisha D Shenai-Khatkhate

During his tenure as defense secretary, Carter rolled back a ban on transgender service members and allowed women to serve in combat roles in the military.

Carter, who increased America’s military presence in Eastern Europe and ramped up American navigation exercises in the South China Sea, took a hawkish line on Russia and China that sometimes put him at odds with his Obama administration peers. He launched several programs to speed the development of new military technologies, allocating money toward advanced munitions and cyber weaponry.

Carter — who had a Ph.D. in theoretical physics — began his Defense Department career with a focus on nuclear weapons policy. While teaching at the Kennedy School, Carter launched a working group to address rogue nuclear weapons after the fall of the Soviet Union. In 1993, President Bill Clinton brought Carter into the Pentagon, where he implemented the proposal to successfully denuclearize former Soviet republics.

Graham T. Allison ’62, the HKS dean who hired Carter, described him as an irreplaceable figure at the school.

“There’s no such person who combines a strong footing in science and technology, and ferocious appetite for trying to understand all the frontiers of technology, and who has that deepest set of commitments to national security, policy, and policymaking,” Allison told the Crimson in 2022.

Carter’s wife, Stephanie, accepted the award on his behalf.