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CBA PROGRAM EXAMINES HISTORY AND NECESSITY OF EQUAL RIGHTS
AMENDMENT
The Long Road to Equality
By William A. Zolla, Editorial Board Member
I
nMarch, 1972, after nearly five decades
of legislative efforts, Congress passed
the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA),
a proposed amendment to the United
States Constitution which declares that
“equality of rights under the law shall not
be denied or abridged by the United States
or any State on account of sex.” Following
passage, Congress submitted the ERA to
the states for ratification, and set a seven-
year deadline for the necessary 38 states to
approve the measure.
Despite strong initial support, only 35
States, not including Illinois, approved the
ERA by the original 1979 deadline, leaving
the proposed amendment three states short
of the 38 needed for ratification. Even after
Congress extended the deadline for ratify-
ing the ERA to 1982, no additional states
approved the measure, and five states which
originally approved the ERA passed resolu-
tions purporting to rescind their approval.
Although the ERA largely faded from
national attention after 1982, efforts to
revive the measure have continued over
the ensuing decades, particularly in recent
years as issues of gender inequality have
remained the subject of intense debate. In
fact, supporters of the ERA have directed
much of their focus on Illinois, which is
considered one of the states most likely to
approve the measure after failing to do so
during the original ratification period.
In light of the renewed public interest
in the ERA, the CBA recently hosted,
“The Equal Rights Amendment: Why it
Still Matters and How it Will Affect Our
Future,” a program which examined the
legislative, legal, and political history of the
proposed amendment, both nationally and
in Illinois. The program also focused on
recent efforts to ratify the ERA in Illinois,
and addressed the continued necessity of
the ERA, the potential effects that the ERA
would have on efforts to combat gender
inequality, and the various legal and politi-
cal hurdles that must be overcome for the
ERA to be ratified.
Cook County Commissioner Larry
Suffredin moderated the program, which
featured Illinois Solicitor General David
Franklin, Illinois State Senator Heather
Steans, Illinois State Representative Louis
Lang, and Chicago Attorney Deane Brown.
Also offering remarks were ElizabethWells
and Sharon Eiseman, Co-Chairs of the
CBA/WBAI Joint Task Force on Women
& Aging, one of the co-sponsors of the
program.
Solicitor Franklin, who discussed the
legislative and political history of the
ERA, believes the ERA, if ratified, would
provide greater protection against gender
discrimination than either current federal
laws or the Equal Protection Clause of the
14
th
Amendment. Ms. Brown agreed that
passage of the ERA could potentially fill in
gaps in current gender discrimination laws
such as Title VII by, for example, covering
independent contractors and govern-
ment employees, and making it easier to
redress systemic bias and discrimination
in employment matters without proving
an employer intended to discriminate.
Representative Lang and Senator
Steans, who have lead the effort to
pass ERA legislation in Springfield,
agreed that the ERA is still important
and necessary, and that it can and
should be passed in Illinois. Accord-
ing to Senator Steans, Illinois is where
the ERA essentially died in 1982, and
the State’s failure to ratify the amend-
ment represents a huge blemish on its
historical record. She and Representa-
tive Lang both believe that the ERA
has overwhelming popular support,
and that passage is simply a matter of
political considerations. Accordingly,
they feel that more public pressure
on state legislators is essential for the
ERA to be ratified in Illinois.
The Chicago Bar Association–
through it’s Legislative Committee
andBoardofManagers–has offered
its full support to the passing of this
current piece of legislation. Find
out more at
www.chicagobar.org/legislative
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FEBRUARY/MARCH 2017