Fourteen years after his late wife received Glamour Magazine‘s “Woman of the Year” award for her courage as a New York police officer on 9/11, an outraged James Smith has returned the award after it was also given to Caitlyn Jenner last week.
Smith’s wife, 38-year-old Moria Smith was the only female NYPD office who was killed in the September 11th terrorist attacks. Smith was killed while helping dozens of people evacuate the south tower of the World Trade Center before it collapsed.
Smith’s husband, himself a former NYPD office, has mailed the award back to the magazine and posted an open letter to Glamour’s editor-in-chief Cindi Leive, excerpted below:
“I was shocked and saddened to learn that Glamour has just named Bruce Jenner “Woman of the Year”. I find it insulting to Moira Smith’s memory, and the memory of other heroic women who have earned this award. Was there no woman in America, or the rest of the world, more deserving than this man? At a time when we have women in the armed forces fighting and dying for our country, heroic doctors fighting deadly diseases, women police officers and firefighters putting their lives on the line for total strangers, brave women overcoming life threatening diseases…the list of possibilities goes on…is this the best you could do?
I can only guess that this was a publicity stunt meant to resuscitate a dying medium.”
Thankfully, Glamour is standing by their decision to honor Caitlyn Jenner with the 2015 Woman of the Year award. “We were proud to honor his wife . . . in 2001, and we stand by our decision to honor Caitlyn Jenner,” a Glamour spokesperson tells the New York Post. “Glamour’s Women of the Year Awards recognize women with a variety of backgrounds and experiences.”
