Just in case you missed it: Virginia became the 38th and last state needed to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) early in the House of Delegates and State Senate’s new term. Poetically, this massive victory comes in the year of the Centennial anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment that guaranteed women’s suffrage in all 50 states and was overseen by Eileen Filler-Corn as the first female Speaker of the House in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
The ERA was first introduced by Alice Paul in 1923 in Seneca Falls, with the text of the amendment stating that “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on the account of sex,” basically ensuring that all genders are equal under the law and are entitled to equal protection. Since then, supporters of the amendment have relentlessly marched, protested, lobbied and more in order to keep the ERA and its mission from fading away.
Before being presented to the states, the ERA passed in both houses of Congress back in 1972 with bipartisan support — a mind-boggling feat, considering the divisive nature of American politics today — and quickly was passed by 35 out of the 38 states necessary for ratification. However, in the mid-70’s an ‘anti-feminist’ movement began to gain momentum and slowed (almost stopped) the progression of the ERA.
Related: The Equal Rights Amendment: An American Dream Soon to Be True
It was stalled at this point until the resurgence of a new, modern wave of feminism and a youth-led, intersectional approach to social activism, both of which are exemplified by the success of the Women’s March, #MeToo movement and even the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, reinvigorated supporters. Each and every woman was slowly forced to come to terms with the fact that none of our fundamental rights are guaranteed and the ERA, frequently seen as archaic and unnecessary, was as necessary today as it was in 1923. This provided the final push to the magic number 38, with Nevada ratifying in 2017, Illinois ratifying in 2018 and — finally — Virginia ratifying in 2020.
Over 80 years after she originally introduced the amendment, Paul stated that:
If we keep on this way they will be celebrating the 150th anniversary of the 1848 Convention without being much further advanced in equal rights than we are…If we had not concentrated on the Federal Amendment we should be working today for suffrage…We shall not be safe until the principle of equal rights is written into the framework of our government.
Carrying this spirit, the amendment has now overcome countless roadblocks and setbacks and the first part of the battle is finally over: equality has prevailed in all of the 38 states that have made the decision to ratify.
The ERA has taken a winding, 96 year long road to this moment, but, unfortunately, it still has a journey ahead of it before it can become the law of the land.
The biggest and most pressing threat to the ERA is the length of time it took to finally get the final few states for ratification. When it passed both houses of Congress, the amendment was given until 1982 to get 38 states to vote in favor of ratification. I doubt anyone needs me to connect the dots for them, but, it is no longer 1982 and this means that each of the last three ratifications came decades too late.
However, the amendment’s supporters both inside and outside of Washington aren’t letting an almost century-long fight die on a technicality. While it doesn’t appear that Congress has the power to extend the deadline, according to the current administration (a resolution has been introduced regardless), states on both sides of the issue are taking it to the court system.
Three democratic Attorney Generals from the three late-adopters of the ERA, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford and Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, have filed a suit in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia to argue that the deadline was not binding, considering it had been extended once before and that the National Office Archives and Records Administration does not have the power to stop the amendment’s ratification.
The Archives disagree with this assessment, stating that they’re simply following the direction of the Department of Justice’s recommendation that the amendment cannot be added to the Constitution and that the ratification process needs to begin again. Similarly, Louisiana, Alabama and South Dakota also filed a lawsuit in 2019 to stop the progression of the amendment due to the long-expired deadline.
Related: The ERA and Why It Matters
While the ERA’s fate now lies in the hands of the federal court system, the significance of its ratification in 38 states cannot be understated.
As someone who adopted Virginia as their home a decade ago, it’s sometimes difficult to accept the Commonwealth’s long-standing habit of being on the wrong side of history on controversial social issues, from slavery and interracial marriage to white supremacy and gun control. However, in recent years we have begun to witness a changing of the guard in Virginia politics, with record numbers of women and minorities holding seats in the state legislature — and now the passage of the ERA. Virginia has long since claimed that it’s for lovers, but now it’s for women too.
Both Virginia and the nation as a whole have a massive mountain to climb before we can guarantee equality for all who reside here, regardless of gender identity, race, religion and sexual orientation. However, if the Equal Rights Amendment is able to be added to the constitution it will serve to pull us all a little bit closer to the peak.