The transmission of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the several states represented a watershed moment in the American constitutional trajectory, signaling a formal legislative attempt to bridge the gap between the Fourteenth Amendment’s generalized Equal Protection Clause and a specific, gender-based guarantee of legal parity. Proposed by U.S. Representative Martha Griffiths and steered through the Senate by Birch Bayh, the amendment’s text was deceptively brief, asserting that equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. This submission to the states followed a lopsided 84–8 Senate vote, reflecting a rare moment of apparent bipartisan consensus regarding the necessity of a definitive constitutional standard for sex-based classification. The historical significance of this 1972 transmittal lies not merely in its text, but in its role as a catalyst for a profound realignment of American political and legal discourse during the late twentieth century.
Before 1972, the Supreme Court had largely applied a "rational basis" test to sex-based discrimination, a standard that permitted state-sponsored distinctions if they were deemed reasonably related to a legitimate government interest. The ERA was designed to elevate the standard of judicial review to "strict scrutiny," a shift that would have effectively invalidated a vast swathe of state and federal laws that treated men and women differently in matters of labor, property, and family law. The initial momentum following the March 22 transmittal was rapid; twenty-two states ratified the amendment within the first year. However, the movement encountered a sophisticated counter-mobilization led by figures like Phyllis Schlafly, who reframed the amendment as a threat to traditional domestic protections and the gender-specific draft. This ideological collision transformed the ERA from a straightforward civil rights initiative into a central pillar of the "culture wars," fundamentally altering how constitutional amendments were debated in the public square.
Historically, the 1972 ERA transmittal also highlighted the procedural complexities of Article V of the Constitution. Because the 92nd Congress included a seven-year ratification deadline in the proposing clause of the resolution, the ERA became a test case for the legality of time limits and subsequent extensions. When the 1979 deadline arrived with only thirty-five of the required thirty-eight states having ratified, Congress passed a controversial extension to 1982. This period prompted significant legal debates regarding whether a subsequent Congress could extend a deadline originally set by its predecessor, and whether states possessed the power to rescind prior ratifications—questions that remain partially unresolved in contemporary constitutional theory.
The significance of the 1972 action is further underscored by the "parallel track" of judicial interpretation that occurred in its wake. As the ERA stalled in state legislatures, the Supreme Court, influenced by the advocacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project, began to move toward an "intermediate scrutiny" standard for gender cases, notably in Frontiero v. Richardson (1973) and Craig v. Boren (1976). Consequently, while the ERA failed to achieve ratification by the 1982 deadline, the 1972 transmittal served as a functional ultimatum that pressured the judiciary to modernize its interpretation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. The legacy of March 22, 1972, is thus defined by a paradox: it remains the most successful attempt to explicitly codify gender equality in the Constitution, yet its failure to cross the final threshold left the United States with a fragmented legal framework where gender protections are derived from shifting judicial precedents rather than a permanent, explicit constitutional mandate.
References / More Knowledge:
National Archives. (1972). The Equal Rights Amendment. https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/equal-rights-amendment
U.S. House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives. (n.d.). The Equal Rights Amendment. https://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/WIC/Historical-Essays/No-Lady/Equal-Rights-Amendment/
Library of Congress. (n.d.). Equal Rights Amendment: Primary Documents in American History. https://guides.loc.gov/equal-rights-amendment
The Alice Paul Institute. (2023). ERA History. https://www.equalrightsamendment.org/history
Harvard University: Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America. (n.d.). The Equal Rights Amendment: A Brief History. https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library/collections/equal-rights-amendment