Civics 101 is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

I'm Nick Effady-J. And I'm Hannah McCarthy. And this is Civics 101, the podcast

refresher course on the basics of how our democracy works. The equal rights amendment is a

proposed constitutional amendment that would guarantee equality under U.S. law regardless of sex.

Huh, shouldn't that already be in there? Is that in there? No? Not really?

The equal rights amendment has been the most frequently proposed amendment in all of U.S. history.

There have been 11,000 proposed amendments over the course of U.S. history. And you know,

we only have 27 that have actually made it into the Constitution. But out of those 11,000,

the equal rights amendment or some version of an equal rights amendment is by far the most

frequently proposed. That's today's guest, Lillian Cunningham. I'm Lillian Cunningham. I'm a

journalist at the Washington Post and I'm the hosting creator of two podcasts we have presidential

and constitutional. Lillian Cunningham, who also goes by Lillian, is joining us to explain the ERA.

And why, almost a century after it was first proposed, we're hearing about it again in the news right now.

Still today, in 2018, women are not given equal rights and protections under federal law.

If the past ERA lord, I don't know what we're going to do.

All right, let's begin with the most basic question of all. Billy, what is the equal rights amendment?

So the equal rights amendment is a proposed amendment or proposed change to the U.S. Constitution.

And so the idea is that we would add a line or two to the Constitution that would explicitly grant

equality under U.S. law to every citizen regardless of their sex. So basically that would mean

women would have the same rights and protections as men under the U.S. Constitution.

The exact wording I have here in front of me, the exact wording is equality of rights under the

law shall not be denied or bridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

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