The Equal Rights Amendment, which was introduced 100 years ago, became enforceable as the 28th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution on Thursday, Jan. 27, 2020. That was the day Virginia became the final state to ratify, giving federal and state governments exactly two years to bring their statutes into alignment.
Since then, the three most recent states to ratify the amendment filed lawsuits to confirm the ERA as lawfully ratified. However, they have been dismissed by the courts as not having standing.
The U.S. House has twice passed a measure to confirm that the ERA has been lawfully ratified. In April, 2023, the U.S. Senate voted down the same measure, although it may still be brought up for action in the 2023-2024 session.
President Biden, despite his clear support, has chosen not to take executive action to direct the U.S. Archivist to publish the ERA as the 28th Amendment to the Constitution, saying it’s a matter for Congress.
Equal rights advocates and state legislators have repeatedly introduced ratification bills at the North Carolina General Assembly. The bills have been referred to the House and Senate Rules Committees, known as the place bills go to die. Still, we persist!
In 2023, the ERA-NC Alliance is pursuing a project to have the language in North Carolina’s statutes updated to address extremely outdated gender terms and their discriminatory effect on North Carolinians. Seventy attorneys from prominent international law firm Winston & Strawn volunteered more than 800 hours to comb through North Carolina’s statutes. They found that only 2,000 pages of the total 47,000 were free from gender references.
Every two years, the Alliance surveys all candidates for the NC General Assembly and Congress on their stance on the ERA. You can see the results of those efforts: from 2022, 2020, and 2018. And we will continue to produce these surveys until North Carolina has ratified the Equal Rights Amendment!
Join us as we continue our work to guarantee Constitutional equality, regardless of gender.
