Model Policy Agenda for State Equal Rights Amendments
Realizing Sex Equality: A Model Policy Agenda for State Equal Rights Amendments is a ground-up approach to dismantling enduring forms of sex-based injustice conceptualized by Columbia Law School’s Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) Project. State Equal Rights Amendments (ERAs) are an underutilized source of robust protections for gender-based justice, and this Model Policy Agenda (MPA) proposes an actionable roadmap for state and local executives—including governors, mayors, attorneys general, and agency administrators—to make sex equality a reality in their jurisdictions.
While efforts to finalize the federal ERA continue, state and local leaders can look closer to home for a constitutional right to sex equality: their state constitutions. Currently, 28 states have explicit sex equality protections within their constitutions. The movement is growing, and multiple states have pending ERAs and ballot initiatives to constitutionalize abortion rights. While too often overlooked as mere symbolic gestures of equality, state ERAs create a unique opportunity for state and local executives to spearhead bold, innovative, and practical gender justice policy agendas.
The ERA Project’s MPA proposes a substantive and intersectional equality framework for advancing gender justice through state ERAs. The impact of sex discrimination is most acutely felt by marginalized groups, including Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC), immigrants, LGBTQ+ individuals, the elderly, people with disabilities, and people living in poverty. The MPA builds from this framework to offer concrete recommendations for state and local governments to meaningfully consider and address unequal access to resources, information, and political power. As a customizable plan for mainstreaming sex equality in government, this MPA lays out three recommendations for state and local executives to assess, remedy, and prevent inequality:
Mandate Gender Impact Assessments (GIAs) for existing systems and proposed policies.
Establish an oversight body to robustly interpret and implement the state ERA.
Implement policies to overcome gender inequality. This strategy puts state ERAs to work, turning the abstract idea of equality into a concrete reality.
On Constitution Day (Sept. 17th), 2024, the ERA Project joined leaders in Nevada’s historic sex equality movement, Nevada NOW, Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN), and SEIU Local 1107 in Las Vegas, Nevada for a report launch and a lineup of exciting speakers to present this first-of-its-kind MPA. This event was designed as the launch of a national movement utilizing this resource specifically created for state actors to develop, improve, and implement Equal Rights Amendments in their states.