WASHINGTON, D.C. —The decision by a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit that would force the federal government to recognize the recent ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) by Virginia was an empty endorsement of an arbitrary deadline.
U.S District Judge Rudolph Contreras’s ruling means that women will have to continue to wait for a constitutional guarantee of equal rights. It has been nearly a half-century that we have waited and close to 100 years since Alice Paul first penned the proposed amendment. As the supposed beacon of democracy, the United States lags behind other developed nations in not having a guarantee in law of equal rights between women and men.
NOW and our tens of thousands of grassroots activists worked diligently to reach the ratification by the 38th state and we won’t be giving up now. We will be working with our partners in this effort and with the attorneys general of Nevada, Illinois, and Virginia. Legislation that would remove the arbitrary deadline from the 1972 ERA resolution will soon be moving through Congress and we will press lawmakers to vote for this important guarantee of equality for women.