The ERA was first proposed in Congress in 1923, but did not successfully emerge until 49 years later, in 1972, when it was sent to the states for ratification. Saddled with a 7-year deadline for state ratification, it ran into opposition from a conservative coalition that objected to women’s equality and feared the loss of women’s privileges. Forty-eight years later, however, in 2020 it received ratification by the 38th state, Virginia, queueing up a series of unprecedented constitutional questions. Does Congress have Article V power to impose a ratification deadline on the states? May the states rescind their ratifications before the necessary 3/4ths of ratifications? May the National Archivist, who is taxed with publishing the amendment, defer to the executive branch Justice Department in determining whether to publish or not? May Congress waive or remove the deadline, or vote to accept the ERA? The lean 70 words of Article V governing constitutional amendments provide little guidance on these issues which are currently in the federal courts. With a conservative majority on SCOTUS, and a bare democratic majority in Congress, what is likely to happen now that we have our first female vice president who has announced that the ERA is high priority? This presentation will explore those issues and the legal and political landscape for what could be our Twenty-Eighth Amendment.

Danaya Wright is the Clarence J. TeSelle Endowed Professor at the University of Florida, Levin College of Law. She has taught in law schools at Arizona State, Indiana University-Indianapolis, and Georgetown. She teaches Property, Constitutional Law, Trusts and Estates, Legal History, and the History of Women in the Law. She has authored dozens of articles and book chapters on such diverse subjects as English family law, American property law involving railroads and utilities, the Constitutional Law of Takings, and on the Equal Rights Amendment. Professor Wright holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Johns Hopkins and a J.D. from Cornell University, as well as master’s degrees in English literature from the University of Arizona and in liberal education from St. John’s College. She has been working closely with the State of Virginia and Equality Now on amicus briefs in the ERA litigation and has blogged and spoken on the subject at events around the country.

Joanna Woolman

Joanna Woolman is an Associate Professor of Law and the Director of the Institute for Children, Families, and Communities at Mitchell Hamline School of Law. Professor Woolman researches, writes, and presents about women’s experiences in the child protection system and criminal justice system. She is a member of the Minnesota Supreme Court’s Juvenile Protection and Adoption Rules Committee. She has been a public defender, directed MHSL’s Re-entry Clinic, and taught in its Child Protection Program and legal skills programs. She holds the J.D. from the University of San Francisco School of Law.