January 1, ACLU blasted for altering RBG quote

The American Civil Liberties Union is being lambasted for a Twitter post where they altered a quote from the late Ruth Bader Ginsberg to remove her use of the words “woman,” “she,” and “her.”

The organization took one of Ginsberg’s famous quotes and used brackets to make the terms gender-neutral.

With Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, we lost a champion for abortion and gender equality. And on the anniversary of her death, the fight to protect abortion access is more urgent than ever. pic.twitter.com/vIKadIHouN

— ACLU (@ACLU) September 18, 2021

The post was quickly met with criticism. Award-winning reporter Kim Willsher called the tweet “dishonest and misleading.”

“A quote is what it is and the generally accepted rule is not to alter other people’s words. If you’re going to quote them, you should quote what they actually said or wrote, otherwise it’s dishonest and misleading especially when someone is no longer around to approve the change,” Willsher wrote.

Journalist Glenn Greenwald also chimed in on the odd decision.

“Imagine being so arrogant, patriarchal and condescending that you think you have the right to take the words of one of the country’s most accomplished women and change what she said after she’s dead to make it cater to what you wish she had said instead of her own words,” Greenwald tweeted.

"One thing that conspicuously distinguishes women from men is that only women become pregnant"– Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

She said this over and over. It was central to her thinking. Obviously one can disagree, but nobody has the right to re-write her words.https://t.co/A0xDe5xXi8

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) September 23, 2021

Some pointed out the irony of misquoting someone in a post meant to memorialize.

“Apparently, you don’t miss her enough to quote her accurately,” one user wrote.

“The one thing you’re missing are her actual words,” another added.

Source:

ACLU ripped for altering RBG quote to erase her use of ‘woman,’ ‘she’ and ‘her‘