Bice: Dozens reverse Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley's edits to her Wikipedia page

Who knew state Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley had so many people interested in her Wikipedia page?

On Monday, the Journal Sentinel reported that Bradley had been quietly editing the details of her personal page on the online encyclopedia to remove information critical of the experienced jurist. Bradley acknowledged she was making the changes, blaming the media for distorting her judicial record.

"I refuse to let false accusations go unchecked," Bradley said in an email. "On my wikipedia page, I added excerpts from actual opinions and removed dishonest information about my background."

Within hours of that story posting, dozens of Wikipedia users made numerous edits to her bio, reversing some of her changes and updating other information. There were so many changes, in fact, that Wikipedia has partially locked the page from further editing.

Among other things, someone noticed that Bradley earlier this year had deleted references to her homophobic writings while a student at Marquette University. These articles came to light during her 2016 Supreme Court race against state Appeals Court Judge JoAnne Kloppenburg.

Now some of the quotes are back on Bradley's Wikipedia's page:

"In the columns, written under her maiden name, Rebecca Grassl, she wrote, 'One will be better off contracting AIDS than developing cancer, because those afflicted with the politically correct disease will get all the funding,' and 'How sad that the lives of degenerate drug addicts and queers are valued more than the innocent lives of more prevalent ailments.' She also wrote, 'But the homosexuals and drug addicts who do essentially kill themselves and others through their own behavior deservedly receive none of my sympathy.' … In another article, Bradley compared abortion to a 'time in history when Jews were treated as nonhumans and tortured and murdered' and 'a time in history when blacks were treated as something less than human.'"

All the quotes are heavily footnoted.

Back in 2016, Bradley apologized after her writings were discovered by the group One Wisconsin Now.

"If Rebecca Bradley wants people to stop reporting on her bigotry and extremism, she shouldn't be saying and writing bigoted, extremist things," Scot Ross, former head of One Wisconsin Now, said this week.

But that's not all. Editors revised and reversed several of Bradley's other changes, including her decision to remove a line saying, "In May 2020, she compared the stay-at-home orders to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, and labeled it 'tyrannic.'"

The reference was made in videotaped remarks by Bradley during oral arguments in a case brought by GOP Republican lawmakers to the stay-at-home order issued by the administration of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in response the COVID-19 pandemic. The sentence is now back on her Wikipedia page.

Along with all that, there is a new entry at the bottom of Bradley's page.

"In 2023, Bradley confirmed to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that she edited her Wikipedia biography, removing and replacing content related to her opinions and background," it states. "Following these changes, the Journal Sentinel reports that Bradley was notified that Wikipedia's conflict of interest guidelines advise against editing your own article."

The only question now is this: Will the conservative jurist be able to follow Wikipedia's rule of law?

Contact Daniel Bice at (414) 313-6684 or dbice@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanielBice or on Facebook at fb.me/daniel.bice.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Dozens reverse Justice Rebecca Bradley's edits to her Wikipedia page