December 13, 2023, marks 100 years since the Equal Rights Amendment was first introduced in Congress. It’s hard to believe that an amendment working to secure something as important as basic equality continues to languish. However, we are still waiting for final ratification and for the ERA to become law, despite a century’s worth of efforts and numerous champions working to secure “equality of rights under the law” for people, regardless of their sex, in our Constitution,.
Determined not to allow one more year to pass before the ERA is published, the ERA Coalition and their partner organizations, including Women Connect4Good, are busy this week asking everyone to join them in multiple ways: to recognize the date, join them in DC for the ERA100 Rally where they will march in solidarity, and much more. As the Coalition writes, “The demand for the ERA is long overdue and more urgent than ever. The US is the only modern democracy that does not include sex equality in its Constitution.” The ERA100 Rally will be one way to do that, and those who can’t attend in person are being asked to call in and remind US Archivist Colleen Shogan that it’s “time for action, not excuses” and to officially add the amendment to the Constitution.
Why is the ERA so important? According to Equality Now, “The original drafters of the US Constitution were all white, landholding (and many slave-holding) men. Women were never part of ‘the people’ they envisioned in the Constitution. Today, women and other marginalized groups are witnessing an unprecedented rollback of their fundamental human rights, making it clearer than ever that legal protections anchored in the highest law of the land are essential so that everyone in the United States can have equal protection under the law, regardless of sex.”
Legal hurdles continue to stand in the way of the ERA becoming the 28th amendment to the Constitution. Congress initially required the states to ratify it by 1977, a deadline extended to 1982. The final three states ratified the ERA beginning in 2018 with Illinois and Nevada, and in 2020, Virginia became the final state needed to ratify the ERA. However, ratification remains elusive. The League of Women Voters reports that in 2020 the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel under the Trump Administration published a memo in response to a request from the National Archives on whether the ERA could be published in the Constitution.
“We conclude that Congress had the constitutional authority to impose a deadline on the ratification of the ERA. Because that deadline has expired, the ERA Resolution is no longer pending before the States.”
While there were hopes that the Biden Administration would reverse the opinion and instruct the National Archives to publish the amendment, the opinion was left to Congress to clarify. It’s important to note that three out of four Americans favor final ratification and publication, according to The Guardian. While something with this level of support should seem like a slam dunk to get through Congress, the ERA continues to face opposition from conservatives who see it as endangering their stances on abortion and transgender rights.
On February 28, 2023, the US Senate held its first hearing on the ERA in 40 years. The Senate Judiciary Committee heard from advocates about why the ERA was needed and legal scholars with differing views on the path forward for the amendment. The League of Women Voters reported that one of the witnesses, Thursday Williams, a board member for the ERA Coalition, offered an impassioned plea for final ratification:
“The Equal Rights Amendment has fulfilled all requirements to be added to the Constitution, now it’s time for it to be recognized. If we continue to hold back more than half of our people from accessing equal opportunities, what does that say about us as a country? How can we be the beacon of freedom and democracy we claim to be if we do not declare that sex discrimination contradicts the American dream? The ERA will make the Constitution a more perfect document so we can have a more perfect union. It is time we stop disappointing the future generation.”
As we recognize this important milestone, we must keep an eye on how close we are to actually getting it done. Join us as one of the champions needed to get achieve final ratification, and for the ERA to become law. If you can’t join the events in Washington, contact your Representatives and Senators and remind them that the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) will update the US Constitution to protect the equality of rights under the law regardless of sex.
Most importantly, on December 13 call into the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) general line and ask the Archivist to publish the ERA at 1-866-272-6272. For more information on the ERA100 and other ERA-related news, go to https://eracoalition.org.