I'm Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, and welcome to We

the People, Weekly Show of Constitutional Debate.

The National Constitution Center is a nonpartisan nonprofit chartered by Congress to increase awareness and understanding of the Constitution among the American people.

July 19th was the anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention, America's first Women's

Rights Convention held in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848.

On this episode, we'll explore what happened at the convention and how its constitutional legacy shaped America through the 19th Amendment which turns 100 next year and through landmark cases of gender equality.

Joining us to discuss the constitutional legacy of Seneca Falls are two of America's leading scholars of women's legal history and gender law.

Erica Bakiyaki is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington

and a research fellow at the Abigail Adams Institute.

She was a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School, and she is the editor of two books, Women Sex

and the Church, a case for Catholic teaching, and the cost of choice. Women evaluate the impact

of abortion. She's also a contributor to the blog Mirror of Justice.

Erica, it's wonderful to have you on the show.

Thank you, Jeffrey.

Tracy A Thomas is John F.

Ciberling, chair of Constitutional Law and Director of the Constitutional Law Center

at the University of Akron School of Law.

She is the author of Elizabeth Caddy Stanton and the Feminist foundations of family law,

an editor of West's annual volume, Women in the Law.

She was also co-editor of feminist legal history,

essays on women in the law, and is co-editor

of the gender and the Law Prof blog.

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