Transcript The Equal Rights Amendment

4-14-15
The Equal Rights Amendment
DO NOW: Identify two areas where
women did not feel they had equal rights.
Agenda
Analyze & Apply Data
Interpret & Draw Conclusions using Multimedia
Summarize & Generalize Notes
Organize & Classify Data in Workbooks
Projects-Invent/Connect/Compare/Contrast
The Equal Rights Amendment
Section 1: Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or
abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
Section 2: The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by
appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3: This amendment shall take effect two years after the date
of ratification.
(1) www.equalrightsamendment.org
ERA Timeline: Key Dates
1923
The ERA was written by Alice Paul, woman suffrage leader and lawyer, and first
introduced into Congress.
1923-1971 The ERA was introduced into every session of Congress but never passed.
1972
The ERA was passed by a two-thirds vote in the Senate and the House of
Representatives, and sent to the states on March 22 with a seven-year deadline for
ratification.
1972-1977 The ERA was ratified by 35 state legislatures, with only three more states needed to
put it into the Constitution.
1978 Congress passed a bill extending the ratification deadline to June 30, 1982.
1978-1982 Organized anti-equality political, economic, social, and religious forces prevented
any more state ratifications before the deadline.
1982-2012 The ERA has been introduced into every session of Congress for the past 30 years.
(2) www.equalrightsamendment.org
What the ERA Would Do
• Guarantee that the rights affirmed by the U.S. Constitution are held
equally by all citizens without regard to sex;
• Provide a fundamental legal remedy against sex discrimination for
both women and men;
• Clarify the legal status of sex discrimination for the courts, where
decisions still deal inconsistently with such claims;
• Make “sex” a suspect classification, as race currently is, so that
governmental actions that treat males or females differently as a
class would have to bear a necessary relation to a compelling state
interest in order to be upheld as constitutional.
(4) www.equalrightsamendment.org
We Need the ERA Because . . .
•
The first – and still the only – right that the Constitution specifically affirms to
be equal for women and men is the right to vote (19th Amendment, 1920).
•
The 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause has never been interpreted to protect
against sex discrimination in the same way that the ERA would.
•
We need a constitutional guarantee of equality to protect against current threats to the
significant advances in women’s rights achieved over the past half century.
•
Without the ERA, women (and occasionally men) still have to fight long, expensive, and
difficult political and legal battles for equal rights under the law.
•
We need to improve the standing of the United States globally with respect to equal justice
under law, since the governing documents of many other countries, however imperfectly
implemented, specifically affirm legal equality of the sexes.
•
We need to liberate the time, intelligence, and energy of the women and men who work for
the simple justice of equal legal rights, so they can be fully engaged with the many other
challenges we face in common.
(5) www.equalrightsamendment.org
States (15) That Have Not Ratified the ERA
Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas
Florida*
Georgia
Illinois*
Louisiana*
Mississippi
Missouri
Nevada
North Carolina
Oklahoma
South Carolina
Utah*
Virginia*
* = states with state ERAs or equal rights guarantees
(9) www.equalrightsamendment.org
Who Supports the Goal of the ERA?
Over 9 out of 10 Americans!
(1) April 2012: Poll for Daily Kos and SEIU (Service
Employees International Union)
“Do you think the Constitution should guarantee equal
rights for men and women, or not?”
It should....................................... 91%
It should not.............................................. 4%
Not sure .................................................... 5%
(2) July 2001: Opinion Research Corporation poll for the ERA Campaign Network
"In your opinion, should male and female citizens of the United States have equal rights?
YES: 96% (95% of men, 97% of women)
NO: 3% (4% of men, 2% of women)
DON'T KNOW:
1% (1% of men, 1% of women)
"In your opinion, should the Constitution make it clear that male and female citizens are supposed to have equal rights?"
YES: 88% (85% of men, 91% of women)
NO: 9% (11% of men, 6% of women)
DON'T KNOW: 3% (4% of men, 3% of women)
“As far as you know, does the Constitution of the United States make it clear that male and female citizens are supposed to have equal
rights?"
YES (or think so): 72% (75% of men, 69% of women)
NO (or don't think so): 18% (16% of men, 21% of women)
DON’T KNOW: 10% (9% of men, 10% of women).
•
Nearly three-quarters– 72% – of the 2001 respondents mistakenly assumed that the Constitution already includes a guarantee of equal
rights for women and men.
•
By presenting these questions without specific mention of the ERA, the surveys filtered out the negative effect of false statements
about it.
•
The citizens of the United States overwhelmingly support a constitutional guarantee of equal rights on the basis of sex. Ratification
of the Equal Rights Amendment will achieve that goal.
(16) www.equalrightsamendment.org
American Indian
Movement
(AIM)
Brief Overview
•Treaties
•Allotment
•Boarding Schools
•Termination and
relocation
• Aim was founded
minneapolis
in 1968 in
•Edward Benton, Vernon and Clyde
Bellecourt were among the
founders
•Dedicated to protecting as well as
imporoving life of native americans
as well as keeping their culture
alive
•First goal: Deal with police
brutality
•1969 – Occupation
of Alcatraz Island
•1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie.
•19 month occupation
•More than 5,600 American Indians
•Wanted positive example: no
violence
Occupation of Alcatraz
•Celebrity Support:
•Boxes of food and money from
CCR, Grateful Dead, Jane Fonda,
Marlon Brando and polititians.
•Life wasn’t perfect occupying the
island:
•Many tribes
•Drugs/alcohol
•Death – 12 yr old Yvonne Oakes
Outcome of Alcatraz
•Some gov. officials wanted
armed takeover – Nixon said
‘no’
•A fire burned 4 buildings
which signaled the end of the
occupation
•People began leaving on
their own
Takeover at Wounded Knee
Wounded Knee, Cont’d
1973 – Lakota contact AIM to help
with corruption within the BIA and
Tribal Council
Armed indians reclaimed wounded
knee
Over 75 nations were represented
Many demands:
•Investigations into 371 Treaties
•Investigate misuse of tribal
funds
•BIA investigation
Wounded Knee Cont’d
•Government cut of electricity and
tried to keep food from going in.
•Heavy Gunfire daily
Buddy Lamond and Frank
Clearwater were killed – 12 others
disappeared.
After 71 days of being free peoples,
the siege ended – Over 1200 were
arrested
Wounded Knee Cont’d
Next 3 years “Reign of Terror”
•64 unsolved murder victims
•300 harassed and beaten
•562 arrests made – only 15
convicted of a crime
Milo Goings, a 27-yearold Oglala, gets a ride
from a fellow tribe
member after Goings was
wounded in an exchange
of gunfire between the
occupiers of Wounded
Knee and U.S. marshals
on March 10, 1973.
Bibliography:
http://siouxme.com/lodge/alcatraz_np.html
http://siouxme.com/siege.html
http://www.aimovement.org/ggc/history.html
http://www.cvmuseum.com/Paths5.html
Bieder, Robert E, Native American Communities in
Wisconsin 1600-1930
Lurie, Nancy Oestrich, Wisconsin Indians
Paths of the People, The Ojibwe in the Chippewa
Valley
Prucha, Francis Paul, Documents of United States
Indian Policy