The ERA Coalition launches, "The Legacy We Deserve: ERA Now - Call on Biden to Put the Equal Rights Amendment in the Constitution"
November 14, 2024
100 Years After Equal Rights Amendment First Introduced, Advocates March From White House To Congress Calling On Leaders to Affirm and Publish ERA
Press Releases
December 13, 2023
Washington, DC –– Today, advocates led by the ERA Coalition marched from the White House to the U.S. Capitol, calling on lawmakers to affirm and publish the Equal Rights Amendment 100 years after it was first introduced in Congress.
“The rights of women and LGBTQ+ people are at risk every day. The Equal Rights Amendment would be a powerful tool to make sure our system is fair and equitable for everyone, empowering Congress and the states to pass laws protecting against discrimination and giving everyday people and the Courts essential tools to fight discriminatory practices,” said ERA Coalition and Fund for Women’s Equality President and CEO Zakiya Thomas. “It’s been 100 years since the Equal Rights Amendment was first introduced in Congress, and we can’t afford to wait one more year for sex equality to be guaranteed under the law.”
The ERA Coalition and partner organizations, including AAUW, Equality Now, Feminist Majority, League of Women Voters, National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), National Organiztion for Women (NOW), Women Connect4Good, and YWCA USA, began their march at the White House alongside advocates, urging the Administration to take all steps necessary for the Equal Rights Amendment to be published in the Constitution.
Along the route, advocates made stopped at the Department of Justice to call on Attorney General Merrick Garland to rescind the previous administration’s Office of Legal Counsel opinion on the Equal Rights Amendment, which improperly weighed in on the merits of still-pending congressional action to change and remove the arbitrary time limit that Congress included when they passed the ERA in 1972. Before reaching Congress, advocates also stopped at the U.S. Archives to call on the U.S. Archivist to publish the Equal Rights Amendment.
The march ended at the U.S. Capitol, where advocates called on Congress to affirm the validity of the Equal Rights Amendment and remove the arbitrary time limit for ratification included in the preamble when it proposed and passed the ERA in 1972. Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the amendment in January 2020, thus fulfilling all constitutional requirements set forth in Article V. Even though the ERA has met all the constitutional requirements for an amendment, making it both valid and enforceable today, it has yet to be published as part of the Constitution.
“It's time to affirm the Equal Rights Amendment as valid and remove any doubts it should be recognized as the 28th Amendment,” Thomas continued. “We’ve waited long enough.”
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About the ERA Coalition
The ERA Coalition and Fund for Women’s Equality is a movement of movements, comprised of nearly 300 partner organizations across the country, representing 80 million people. From gender, racial, economic, and reproductive justice to LGBTQ+ rights, we unite interconnected, intergenerational, and intersectional organizations under one banner: to advance sex equality. This is what unites us all. Visit their website at eracoalition.org.