After months of intense lobbying of Joe Biden to get him to instruct the National Archivist to PUBLISH the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and thereby officially add it to the U.S. Constitution before leaving office -- Joe Biden, 3 days before the end of his presidency, did finally make a long hoped-for statement about the ERA. In it he said that the Equal Rights Amendment is already law and and that he agreed with the American Bar Association and many other experts who affirm this belief and that no further action is necessary to make the ERA the law of the land.

But Biden's statement created even more confusion, because he did not instruct the U.S. Archivist to publish the ERA, widely considered a necessary step in making amendments official. 

Some, like Senator Kristen Gillibrand, advised that women start bringing cases as if the ERA is now law. But Wendy Murphy, the attorney who sued the Biden Administration over its not publishing the ERA, thinks that another legal case now before the Supreme Court, known as Skirmetti can torpedo the ERA and that Biden is aware of that -- and therefore his statement is a trap. Laurence Tribe, on the other hand, think that publication is not necessary, as that step was added at a time when we did not have the kind of communication (media including the internet) and therefore is no longer needed (and it is also not mentioned in the Fifth Amendment, which specifies the process for Amendments) as a bona fide necessity for an amendment to become an official part of the Consitution.

On this show we will feature three different points of view on the status of the ERA at this moment in time--and what is to be done!

OUR GUESTS...

WendyMurphy, Esq.

Wendy is an impact litigator whose work in state and federal courts has changed the law to better protect the constitutional and civil rights of victimized women and children. Wendy writes and lectures widely on the constitutional and civil rights of women and children, and criminal justice policy.

Professor Laurence Tribe

Laurence H. Tribe is Carl M. Loeb University Professor of Constitutional Law Emeritus at Harvard University. His canonical 1978 treatise, “American Constitutional Law,” transformed the field and helped put him on the course to becoming one of the nation’s foremost legal scholars.

Kamala Lopez

Kamala Lopez is an American filmmaker, actress, writer, director, and political activist. In 2016, her  documentary Equal Means Equal, won Best U.S. Documentary (Audience Award) and became a teaching tool about the Equal Rights Amendment. She later started an action group to push for the ERA, also called Equal Means Equal.