The 15 states that did not ratify the Equal Rights Amendment before the 1982 deadline were Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and Virginia.

Phyllis Schlafly

On December 23, 1981, a federal district court, in the case of Idaho v. Freeman, ruled that the extension of the ERA ratification deadline to June 30, 1982 was not valid, and that ERA had actually expired from state legislative consideration more than two years earlier on the original expiration date of March 22, 1979.

After the 19th Amendment was ratified by on Aug. 18, 1920, the party turned its attention to the broader issue of women’s equality. The result: the ERA. But the amendment failed to gain much widespread support in the 1920s partly because it divided members of the women’s movement along class lines.

The Equal Rights Amendment is necessary because the Constitution has never been interpreted to guarantee the rights of women as a class and the rights of men as a class to be equal. When the U.S. Constitution was adopted in 1787, the rights it affirmed were guaranteed equally only for certain white males.

What Is the ERA’s Current Status? In 2017, Nevada became the first state in 45 years to pass the ERA, followed by Illinois in 2018 and Virginia in 2020! Now that the necessary 38 states have ratified, Congress must eliminate the original deadline.

States can continue to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) that Congress proposed in 1972 only if it is still pending before the states. If it is not, however, the 1972 ERA cannot be ratified because it no longer exists. The 1972 ERA, therefore, can no longer be ratified—because it no longer exists.

But there is a problem. When it was approved, the amendment was initially meant to be ratified by 1979, a deadline Congress later extended to 1982. The push to get the amendment ratified continued after that, even though the deadline has passed.

The version approved by Congress in 1972 and sent to the states 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. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”

The ERA is a constitutional amendment which would prohibit denying or abridging equal rights under law by the United States or any state on account of sex. This critical amendment would guarantee the equal rights of men and women by: Guaranteeing equal footing for women in the legal systems of all 50 states.

The Equal Rights Amendment is needed in order to prevent a rollback of women’s rights by conservative or reactionary political votes. The ERA will promote laws and court decisions that fairly take into account women’s, as well as men’s, experiences. Title VII and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act (1964)

The United States Supreme Court rules for the first time ever that a law that discriminates against women is unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment, holding unanimously that a state statute that provides that males must be preferred to females in estate administration denies women equal protection of the law.

Working women did not want the National Woman’s Party to promote the ERA, either. They feared that the amendment would strike labor laws that protected only women. The ERA, thus, faltered because it failed to take into account the needs of working women and women of color.

What was one reason why the equal rights amendment failed? Fewer women wanted to enter the workforce by the 1970s. Only seven states ratified the amendment in the allotted time. Many people feared potential unintended effects of the amendment because it was vaguely worded.

When the equal rights amendment was introduced in Congress in 1972, it quickly garnered the necessary majority in each house and was sent to the states for their consideration. But the ERA was never able to gain the approval of another three states to reach the necessary 38 state majority.

In 1970, after decades of receiving little attention and getting bottled up in committee, congressional hearings were held and the amendment was given serious consideration. Although the ERA continues to be introduced in each Congress, it has never again reached the level of support it had in 1972.

Alice Paul

However, during the mid-1970s, a conservative backlash against feminism eroded support for the Equal Rights Amendment, which ultimately failed to achieve ratification by the a requisite 38, or three-fourths, of the states.

An ERA will ensure that the rights of American women and girls will not be diminished by any Congress or any political trend, but instead be preserved as basic rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. An ERA would help promote equal pay for women in the country.

Indeed, there are five states — Kentucky, Nebraska, Tennessee, South Dakota and Idaho — that originally voted to ratify the ERA but have since rescinded their ratification. In fact, all five states withdrew before the 1982 deadline.