Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award  The Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award is an award created in honor of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. The Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Awards were established in 1979 to honor individuals who have made significant contributions in the vital effort to protect and enhance First Amendment rights for Americans. Since the inception of the awards, more than 100 individuals including high school students, lawyers, librarians, journalists and educators have been honored. Nominees have traditionally come from the areas of journalism, arts and entertainment, education, publishing, law, and government, and winners are selected by a panel of distinguished judges. The judges were Tom Bradley, Mayor of Los Angeles; Jules Feiffer, playwright and social cartoonist; Fay Kanin, President, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Victor Navasky, Editor, The Nation; and Tom Wicker, Columnist and Associate Editor, The New York Times. The judges were Edward Brooke, US Senator, Massachusetts; Nat Hentoff, author and columnist, The Village Voice; Fay Kanin, President, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Judith Krug, Director, The American Library Association; and Charles Nesson, Dean, Harvard Law School. The judges were Yvonne Braithwaite Burke, Partner, Kutak, Rode & Huie; Hamilton Fish III, Publisher, The Nation; Florence McMullin, Chair, The Washington Library Association Intellectual Freedom Committee; and Aryeh Neier, Professor of Law, New York University. The judges were Harriet Pilpel, Attorney, Weil, Gotshal & Manges; Studs Terkel, author and nationally syndicated radio show host; and William Worthy, international journalist and civil liberties activist. The judges were Martin Agronsky, Agronsky and Company; Alan Dershowitz, Professor, Harvard Law School; and Liza Pike, Program Director, Center for Investigative Reporting. The judges were Burton Joseph, Attorney, Barsy, Joseph & Lichtenstein; Harriet Pilpel, Attorney, Weil, Gotshal & Manges; and Melody Sands, former owner of The Athens News. The judges were Julius Chambers, President, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund; Maxwell Lillienstein, General Counsel, American Booksellers Association; and Anthony Podesta, Founding President, People for the American Way. The judges were Charlayne Hunter-Gault, New York Correspondent, The MacNeil / Lehrer NewsHour; Anthony Lewis, syndicated columnist, The New York Times; Steven Pico, First Amendment lecturer and advocate; and Tom Wicker, political columnist, The New York Times.