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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio,

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Speaker 1: Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that shines a light on the ups and downs

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Speaker 1: of everyday history. I'm Gabeluesier, and in this episode, we're

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Speaker 1: looking at the time when a constitutional amendment won almost

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Speaker 1: unanimous support in Congress, only to die a slow, protracted

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Speaker 1: death thanks to a self imposed deadline. The day was

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Speaker 1: March twenty second, nineteen seventy two. The Equal Rights Amendment

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Speaker 1: was passed by the US Senate and sent to the

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Speaker 1: states for ratification. The joint resolution easily surpassed Congress's two

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Speaker 1: thirds threshold, having garnered a vote of three hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty four to twenty four in the House of Representatives

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Speaker 1: and eighty four to eight in the Senate, But there

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Speaker 1: was one step remains for the constitutional amendment to be

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Speaker 1: officially adopted. Three fourths of the states or thirty eight

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Speaker 1: of them, had to ratify it within the next seven years,

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Speaker 1: a feat that proved easier said than done. The Equal

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Speaker 1: Rights Amendment, or the ER, was first drafted in nineteen

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Speaker 1: twenty three by civil rights activist and suffragist Alice Paul.

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Speaker 1: Following the enactment of the Nineteenth Amendment three years earlier,

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Speaker 1: which granted women the right to vote. Paul believed the

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Speaker 1: ER was the next logical step in securing legal equality

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Speaker 1: for all US citizens. The proposed amendment sought to rectify

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Speaker 1: an oversight in the Constitution by outlawing discrimination on the

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Speaker 1: basis of sex. The operative clause of the RA was

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Speaker 1: just twenty four words long, equality of rights under the

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Speaker 1: Law shall not be denied or abridged by the United

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Speaker 1: States or by any State on account of sex. Variations

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Speaker 1: of this proposed amendment were presented in every session of

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Speaker 1: Congress from nineteen twenty three to nineteen seventy, but each

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Speaker 1: time the RA stalled in committee and never made it

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Speaker 1: to the floor for a vote. That finally changed in

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy when Martha Griffiths, a Democratic representative from Michigan,

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Speaker 1: was able to force the proposed legislation out of committee

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Speaker 1: so that it could finally be debated by the entire body.

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Speaker 1: The House passed the RA that same year, and then

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Speaker 1: after it failed in the Senate, the House passed a

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Speaker 1: reworded version in nineteen seventy one. That time, the Senate

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Speaker 1: got on board, and on March twenty second nineteen seventy two,

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Speaker 1: the ERRA was finally approved by both chambers of Congress,

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Speaker 1: a mere forty nine years after its introduction. The so

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Speaker 1: called second wave of feminism in the nineteen sixties had

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Speaker 1: prompted the era's reintroduction, and when the Senate chair announced

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Speaker 1: the final tally on March twenty second, the women in

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Speaker 1: the overflowing visitors gallery erupted in celebration. Just two hours later,

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Speaker 1: Hawaii became the first state to ratify the er and

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Speaker 1: within a year, some thirty other states had followed suit.

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Speaker 1: With just a handful of states left to go to

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Speaker 1: meet the three fourths threshold, it looked as if the

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Speaker 1: ER would comfortably make its seven year deadline, with plenty

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Speaker 1: of time to spare. However, the ratification process slowed considerably

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Speaker 1: in the mid nineteen seventies, thanks largely to the mobilization

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Speaker 1: of conservative activists. Phyllis Schlaffley's Stop ER campaign was especially

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Speaker 1: effective at eroding support. Her organization argued that adopting the

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Speaker 1: RA as the twenty seventh Amendment would actually hurt women

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Speaker 1: standing in the US rather than help it. Shaffley claimed

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Speaker 1: the amendment would deny women long standing privileges such as

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Speaker 1: exemption from the draft, and that it would lead to

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Speaker 1: the breakdown of traditional gender roles. Here's a clip of

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Speaker 1: her explaining her views on women's role in society during

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Speaker 1: a nineteen seventy two interview. How do you view the

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Speaker 1: relationship of and men?

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Speaker 2: Is it equal? Women should not be an equal to men.

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Speaker 2: I think under our present system in the United States,

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Speaker 2: women enjoy a very wonderful status. I think it's better

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Speaker 2: than equality. I think women would be sacrificing many of

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Speaker 2: the good things they now have, and it would be

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Speaker 2: taking a step downward to go for equality.

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Speaker 1: Ironically, Phyllis Shaffley made the case for why women should

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Speaker 1: remain dutiful housewives and mothers while working as an attorney

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Speaker 1: and traveling the country to express her views. Nonetheless, her

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Speaker 1: rhetoric found a receptive audience among conservative women, many of

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Speaker 1: whom had already been wary of the women's rights movement

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Speaker 1: due to its support of issues like abortion rights, gay marriage,

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Speaker 1: and contraception. So once Schaffee sounded the alarm over the er,

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Speaker 1: they quickly withdrew their support from that as well. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight, the deadline for ratification was fast approaching,

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Speaker 1: and the RA was still several states short of the

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Speaker 1: three fourths required by Article five of the Constitution. Congress

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Speaker 1: made a controversial move by extending the time limit to

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Speaker 1: June thirtieth, nineteen eighty two, but even with an extra

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Speaker 1: three years, the ER only managed to gather support from

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Speaker 1: thirty five states, three fewer than it needed. All these

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Speaker 1: years later, proponents of women's rights continued to advocate for

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Speaker 1: the ER, when it's been introduced to every session of

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Speaker 1: Congress since nineteen eighty three. Three additional states have even

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Speaker 1: ratified it after the fact, Nevada in twenty seventeen, Illinois

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Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen, and Virginia in That means the ER

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Speaker 1: has now reached the three fourths of states threshold, but

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Speaker 1: because of the expired clause, it's a moot point in

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Speaker 1: the eyes of Congress. Some legal scholars have argued that

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Speaker 1: the ratification deadline was unconstitutional to begin with, as Article

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Speaker 1: five makes no mention of a time limit for amendments.

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Speaker 1: In fact, the most recent amendment, Number twenty seven, wasn't

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Speaker 1: ratified until nineteen ninety two, more than two hundred years

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Speaker 1: after it was introduced. The difference there was that it

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Speaker 1: didn't include a deadline for ratification, but that only underscores

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Speaker 1: the argument that the er has been held to a

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Speaker 1: different standard than other amendments, one that isn't expressly prescribed

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Speaker 1: by the Constitution. It's worth noting that despite the failure

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Speaker 1: of the RA, the federal government and all fifty states

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Speaker 1: have passed legislation protecting the legal rights of women beyond

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Speaker 1: just the right to vote. But as events have shown,

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Speaker 1: the status of those rights is still subject to the

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Speaker 1: whims of unelected court officials. So while some protections are

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Speaker 1: better than nothing, they're not as ironclad as a constitutional amendment.

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Speaker 1: At the time of recording, the Equal Rights Amendment is

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Speaker 1: just over a century old and remains unratified. Here's hoping

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Speaker 1: it doesn't take another one hundred years to correct that.

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Speaker 1: I'm Gabe Bluesyay, and hopefully you now know a little

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Speaker 1: more about history today than you did yesterday. If you'd

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Speaker 1: like to keep up with the show, you can follow

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Speaker 1: us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI HC Show,

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Speaker 1: and if you have any comments or suggestions, feel free

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Speaker 1: to send them my way by writing to this Day

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Speaker 1: at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Kasby Bias for producing

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Speaker 1: the show, and thanks to you for listening. I'll see

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Speaker 1: you back here again tomorrow for another day in history class.

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Speaker 1: Aspendent the interpundent in the USU