whit on Nostr: The **ERA—the Equal Rights Amendment—is the century-long effort to put an ...

The **ERA—the Equal Rights Amendment—is the century-long effort to put an explicit guarantee of equality regardless of sex into the U.S. Constitution.

Its central idea is simple: government should not deny people equal legal rights because of their sex. Its path into the Constitution has been anything but simple. Source : #NationalArchives

**What it says**

Its main provision 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.”

Two additional sections give Congress enforcement power and provide that the amendment takes effect two years after ratification. The language protects people regardless of sex, rather than naming women alone.

**How we got here**

| Year | What happened |

| **1923** | The ERA was first introduced in Congress after Alice Paul’s campaign for constitutional equality.

| **1972** | Congress approved it and sent it to the states. It needed **38 states**, with an initial seven-year deadline. |

| **1977** | **Indiana became the 35th state to ratify**, on January 18. |

| **1982** | The extended deadline expired with only 35 states having ratified. |

| **2017–2020** | Nevada, Illinois, and Virginia ratified, bringing the number of states that had approved it to 38—but after the deadline. |

| **2025** | President Biden declared it the “law of the land.” His statement did not resolve the legal dispute or secure certification. |

That is the central complication: **38 states have voted yes, but whether those votes legally completed ratification remains disputed.

**Why the fight is still happening**

There are two major procedural disputes:

- **The deadline:** Supporters argue that the deadline can be removed or should not prevent recognition, particularly because it appeared in Congress’s proposing resolution rather than the amendment’s operative text. The Justice Department’s 2020 position was that the deadline was binding and the amendment had failed adoption.

- **Attempted withdrawals:** Several states tried to withdraw their earlier ratifications. Whether those withdrawals can legally count is another disputed constitutional question.

**As of October 2026, it has not been certified and published as the 28th Amendment.** The National Archives’ published position is that existing legal and procedural constraints prevent certification. Advocates continue to argue that it is already valid; that position should not be confused with settled, operative constitutional status.

**Don’t women already have equal rights?**

Women already have substantial constitutional and statutory protections. Courts apply the Constitution’s equal-protection guarantees to sex discrimination, and laws such as Title VII and Title IX provide additional protections.

The ERA would add an **explicit constitutional prohibition on government sex discrimination**. Supporters argue this would strengthen those protections and make equality less dependent on legislation and judicial interpretation. Its precise effects would still require court decisions; it would not automatically eliminate unequal pay or every form of private discrimination.

**Who opposed it—and why?**

Phyllis Schlafly’s **STOP ERA** movement was a major force in blocking ratification during the 1970s. It argued that the amendment threatened women’s existing protections and traditional family roles, and raised fears about women in military combat, gender-neutral bathrooms, and same-sex marriage. Those were opposition arguments about potential consequences, not provisions written into the amendment.

The question underneath this entire history is powerful: **Should equality regardless of sex be written expressly into the country’s highest law?** Americans have been fighting over that proposal for more than a hundred years.