BY CARRIE N. BAKER | Tuesday marked 50 years since the Equal Rights Amendment was first approved by the U.S. Congress and sent to the states for ratification. To commemorate the past half-century of striving for women’s equality, Congress members and women’s rights advocates spoke out in support of the amendment.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee sent a letter to U.S. archivist David Ferriero, urging him to fulfill his statutory duty and publish the ERA. The letter included opinions from respected law scholars—including Laurence Tribe of Harvard and former Senator Russ Feingold, now president of American Constitution Society—all of whom concluded that the ERA has met all requirements to be officially included in the Constitution as the 28th Amendment, and that the archivist should publish it as such.
“Women and people of all marginalized genders across the United States continue to experience discrimination on the basis of sex,” wrote Maloney. “The only way to ensure true and equal protection under the law is to cement the ERA into the U.S. Constitution. As Chairwoman of the Committee with jurisdiction over the National Archives, and as a woman whose rights under the law are still not fully reflected in our nation’s founding document, I urge you to carry out your ministerial duty under the law without delay.”
Feminist Majority Foundation president Eleanor Smeal, who was in the Gallery of the Senate when it approved the Equal Rights Amendment on March 22, 1972 and has worked for its passage ever since, said on this 50th Anniversary: “Take it from me who has worked on ratification of the ERA for over 50 years, this is really difficult. Don’t make it impossible.”
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