Will the Equal Rights Amendment soon be enshrined in the U.S. Constitution? We spoke to an expert about what’s next
An Equal Rights Amendment march in Washington, D.C., in 1978. Photo: Ann E. Zelle/Getty Images Nearly after a century after the National Women’s Party first proposed the Equal Rights Amendment, the article — which would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex in the U.S. Constitution — has finally met a major benchmark.
“After nearly 100 years of working to put equality into the Constitution, a document that lays out our nation’s most fundamental rights and laws, we are taking the historic step to make ratification a reality,” Virginia state House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn said of its passing. “Finally, women will be represented in the Constitution.”
While women have won many rights and protections in the past few decades, Martha Davis, a constitutional law professor at Northeastern University School of Law, told the Cut that the progress has largely been through statute or judicial opinions, which can be reversed much more easily than a constitutional amendment.
So will we soon see discrimination on the basis of sex — and as a corollary, issues like gender pay inequality — prohibited in the Constitution? While Davis says the development out of Virginia is certainly worth celebrating, the the path forward isn’t free of obstacles.
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