On the eve of our nation’s celebration of liberty for all, a federal court has ruled that not only can women not celebrate being equal, they do not even have the right to fight for their equal rights in court!
A three judge panel of the First Circuit Court of Appeals said on June 29, 2021 that women’s organizations and women individually or as a group do not have the right to invoke the jurisdiction of the court to hear our case seeking a Court Order to force the U.S. Archivist to publish the Equal Rights Amendment, the “ERA.”
Read the Opinion Here
We will seek further review of this outrageous decision by the full First Circuit Court of Appeals. How can any court rule that women as a class have no standing to even SPEAK in court when the government unlawfully blocks women from achieving equal protection of the law — even after the ERA was ratified by the necessary 38 states on January 27, 2020?
Over 46 million women voted for President Biden and Vice President Harris, in part because they explicitly stated during their campaign that they support the ERA being published in the Constitution!
Yet, for five months, President Biden has allowed his Department of Justice to continue to fight against the ERA, using the Bill Barr / Trump playbook, in this federal case and in the other one brought by the last three states to ratify the ERA: Arizona, Illinois and Virginia. These states have their case on appeal in the D.C. Court of Appeals, after also being told they didn’t have standing to force the Archivist to publish the ERA!
President Biden has refused to take responsibility for his own campaign pledge and, instead, sent women to ask the Attorney General and the Department of Justice to rescind the Bill Barr / Trump playbook (known as the OLC Opinion).
So, Equal Means Equal has been protesting as ERA Sentinels outside of the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. for several weeks. We need many more women to join us in this visible protest! If you cannot make the trip yourself, you can donate to give unemployed women part-time work to help organize and join in the protest.
Click here for more information
They are all together, with one voice, holding signs and chanting outside the DOJ, “What do we want? ERA! When do we want it? Yesterday!”
The DOJ knows we are there! Today, a Special Assistant to the head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights division, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, spoke with Arlaine Rockey, the attorney for our 86 Amicus Curiae (Friends of the Court) organizations, representing millions of people demanding that the Equal Rights Amendment be published as the 28th Amendment! Arlaine told him that it is imperative that the DOJ and the Biden Administration STOP blocking the ERA and tell the U.S. Archivist to publish it now. He was very receptive and will be sharing this important message with Assistant Attorney General Clarke.
Women, and their supporters, need to get loud and join together and demand that Attorney General Merrick Garland and President Biden have the Archivist publish the ERA now!
This is not over. Women must fight harder than ever and pressure the Biden administration to use his authority as head of the executive branch and demand that the ERA be published immediately. If the courts won’t follow the law then women must rise up in protest as our sister sentinels did 100 years ago. We must bring pressure to bear on Biden NOW and demand that he do everything in his power to make the Archivist of the United States do his job – obey the law – and put the ERA in the Constitution as the 28th Amendment.
Equal Means Equal will not stop until the job is done. Equal means equal.
FUEL THE FIGHT FOR EQUAL RIGHTS
Love and thanks
Kamala, Natalie, Wendy, Thila, Rebecca and the EME Team
