Equal Rights Amendment Backers’ 100-Year Fight Turns to Congress

The Equal Rights Amendment has faced a century of setbacks since its first introduction in 1923, most recently this week’s court ruling that has ERA backers largely shifting their focus to pressing Congress to validate the measure.

In the Feb. 28 decision, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected calls to order the ERA published as the 28th Amendment, finding the 1979 deadline that Congress set for states to ratify it might mean the amendment’s window for passage has closed. But the court didn’t entirely rule out the ERA backers’ argument that Congress lacks ...