About

Who We Are

A non-partisan, diverse group of organizations and individuals working together to educate and ensure that regardless of gender, all Americans are protected equally under the law through Utah’s ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Our Mission

Utah ERA Coalition is a bi-partisan group of 30 local organizations, national organizations, and hundreds of Utah citizens working for greater equality and fairness. Our mission is to educate Utah citizens about the Equal Rights Amendment and its importance in providing a strong legal foundation for constitutional protection against sex discrimination. We support the fundamental notion that women and men deserve to be legally protected in all the spaces they occupy — at home, at work, and in the community. Through ratification, we can uphold the Utah ideal that all women and men across the nation are created equal and deserve constitutional protection under the law.

Rocky Mountain Women's Convention in 1907

Pictured: Susan B. Anthony with Utah Suffragists

Women have been working on an Equal Rights Amendment since white women won the vote. Though Susan B. Anthony is widely celebrated for her role in Suffrage, women of color were a vital part of these efforts nationally and locally. Though not granted voting rights until decades later, the contribution of women of color, such as Mary Church Terrell and Hallie Quinn Brown and others, was pivotal in gaining equal rights. The Delta Sigma Theta Sorority of Howard University, an all-black sorority, led the charge for Suffrage and the Equal Rights Amendment and are still actively working for passage of the ERA today.

Local women made a tremendous impact as well, for instance, Zitkala-Sa, a Dakota Sioux and co-founder of The National Council of American Indians, lobbied for Indigenous Suffrage and Civil Rights. Hannah Kaaepa advocated for Hawaiian Women’s Rights and in 1899, was part of the Utah Delegation to speak at the third Triennial Congress of the National Congress of the Council of Women. Another Utah woman, Esther Landa, was president of The National Council of Jewish Women, the oldest Jewish Women’s Volunteer organization in the U.S., and worked to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in Utah with the aim of “social justice by improving the quality of life for women, children and families.”

Zitkála-Šá

Image from National Museum of American History

Alice Paul

Suffragists Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman penned the Equal Rights Amendment to ensure women would receive the same legal protections under the law afforded to men in our founding document, the U.S. Constitution. It was introduced in every Congress from 1923, but the first time was by Susan B Anthony’s nephew Representative Daniel Anthony, and Senator Charles Curtis.

Paul, then head of the National Women’s Party, led the Suffrage movement and knew that winning the vote was only the beginning of the fight for full equality. She stated, “It is incredible to me that any woman should consider the fight for full equality won. It has just begun. There is hardly a field, economic or political, in which the natural and unaccustomed policy is not to ignore women…Unless women are prepared to fight politically they must be content to be ignored politically.” Eastman, labor lawyer and co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Bureau, later the ACLU, said this about the intensity of the battle against women’s rights under the law, “this is a fight worth fighting, even if it takes ten years.”

Though it is undeniable that women have made significant progress toward equality over the years, women continue to battle systematic discrimination in the form of unequal pay, workplace harassment, and domestic violence. Tackling these issues will take more than just reactionary solutions. We must address the root cause of inequality by amending our constitution.

The ERA passed both houses in 1972 crossing the 38-state threshold for ratification on January 7, 2020. Once signed into law, the 28th Amendment will pave the way for further legislative progress towards gender equality and will allow the courts to closely scrutinize sex-based discrimination.

The text of the ERA is as follows: “Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Sec. 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provision of the article. Sec. 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.