Women's History Month: Digital Read In

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was designed to guarantee legal equality regardless of sex, but its path to ratification has been long and complicated.

• 1923 – Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party draft the first version of the Equal Rights Amendment and introduce it to Congress.
• 1940s-1960s – The ERA is reintroduced in every session of Congress but fails to gain traction.
• March 22, 1972 – The U.S. Senate approves the ERA, sending it to the states for ratification.
• By 1977 – 35 of the required 38 states ratify the ERA, falling just three states short of the constitutional requirement.
• 1979 – Congress extends the original ratification deadline from 1979 to June 30, 1982.
• 1982 – The extended deadline passes without the final three states ratifying the amendment. The ERA is considered "expired." Five states (Idaho, Kentucky, Nebraska, Tennessee, and South Dakota) vote to rescind their ratifications, leading to legal debates about whether states can revoke ratification.
• 1994-2010 – Women’s Rights groups push for the "three-state strategy" to revive the ERA by seeking new state ratifications.
• 2017 – Nevada ratifies the ERA, becoming the first state to do so in over 40 years.
• 2018 – Illinois ratifies the ERA, leaving just one more state needed.
• January 27, 2020 – Virginia becomes the 38th state to ratify the ERA, reaching the required number of state approvals—but long after the original deadline.
• 2020-Present – Legal debates continue over whether Congress can remove or extend the deadline retroactively.
• March 17, 2021 – The U.S. House of Representatives votes to eliminate the deadline for ratification, but the measure stalls in the Senate.
• 2023-2024 – The fight continues, with activists pushing for Congress and courts to recognize the ERA as the 28th Amendment.
• January 17, 2025: In his final days in office, President Joe Biden declared that the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) had met all necessary requirements to be recognized as the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. On January 17, 2025, he stated, "It is long past time to recognize the will of the American people... the 28th Amendment is the law of the land, guaranteeing all Americans equal rights and protections under the law regardless of their sex."
• Current status and ongoing debate: The ERA remains in limbo due to legal and political challenges. Supporters argue that the amendment should be recognized since 38 states have ratified it. Opponents argue that because the deadline passed, the ratifications after 1982 don’t count. Congress could remove the deadline or restart the amendment process, but political divisions have slowed progress.

The fight for constitutional gender equality continues, over 100 years after the ERA was first introduced.