On Friday, January 17, 2025, President Biden issued a historic opinion on the Equal Rights Amendment, confirming that the amendment has met all the Article V requirements to amend the Constitution, and that it should be published immediately as the 28th Amendment.
This opinion supersedes that of the Trump-era Office of Legal Counsel preventing the National Archivist from certifying Virginia’s 2020 ratification of the ERA, as he had for the Nevada (2017) and Illinois (2018) ratifications. As Virginia was the 38th and final state needed to ratify, the ERA is therefore the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The text of the Equal Rights Amendment simply reads: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”
The ERA allows the courts to apply the strictest scrutiny in gender discrimination cases, and it gives us the foundation we need to build a more equitable state and nation.
The ERA-NC Alliance thanks all the activists over the years who have never given up on the Equal Rights Amendment, from our lead and member organizations, the ERA Champions in Congress and the North Carolina General Assembly, our Alliance founders and leadership past and present to all our dedicated members and advocates. We thank you all for the arduous and continued work to get here.
Now we roll up our sleeves and start implementing the ERA.
The Equal Rights Amendment becoming the 28th Amendment to the US Constitution is the culmination of 100+ years of dedicated work by millions of women. I thank all of those who have sacrificed to make the ERA a reality and the law of the land.