ACLU apologises for ‘woke’ tweak to Ginsburg quote

THE American Civil Liberties Union has apologised for altering a quote by Ruth Bader Ginsburg to replace the word “women” with “people”, after the group founded to defend free speech was criticised for “woke” censorship.

On the first anniversary of the Supreme Court justice’s death, the leading civil rights group published part of one of her best known speeches, but changed the wording to make it gender neutral. At Ginsburg’s confirmation hearing in 1993 she was asked her position on abortion.

In a quote that would be widely repeated in the following decades, she said: “The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her wellbeing and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself.

“When the government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a full adult human responsible for her own choices.”

But in the version that the ACLU shared on Twitter, it removed any reference to women. The new quote read: “The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a [person’s] life, to [their] wellbeing and dignity.

“When the government controls that decision for [people], [they are] being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for [their] own choices.”

Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, said: “Ginsburg herself would have had little patience with such woke revisionism.

“If one accepts this view that the reference to ‘woman’ is offensive, you can still accept that historical documents should be read in their original form.”

Ginsburg, a liberal and feminist icon – widely known by her initials RBG – was a lawyer for the ACLU and cofounded its Women’s Rights Project in the Seventies.

She then became the second woman to serve on the US Supreme Court.

The ACLU was founded in 1920 to defend Americans’ constitutional rights, including free speech. For a century, it has been committed to the first amendment, even defending the free speech rights of the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis, but there has been growing concern in recent years that it has become consumed by Left-wing causes.

Anthony Romero, the executive director of the ACLU, apologised for the alteration. He told The New York Times it was a “mistake among the digital team”, adding that the organisation would not do the same again.

But he said it was necessary to “understand a reality that people who seek abortions are not only women. That reality exists. In today’s America, language sometimes needs to be rethought.”

He also maintained that Ginsburg herself would have approved.

Matt Gorman, a Republican digital strategist, said it showed that “RBG isn’t woke enough” for the ACLU. Megyn Kelly, a former Fox News host, said: “Who the hell at the ACLU thought they had the licence to edit the late RBG to erase women from her thoughts? This is deeply wrong on every level.”

The New York Times described the ACLU’S move as “somewhat Orwellian”.