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Full-Text Articles in Legal History
Situating Dobbs, Paula A. Monopoli
Situating Dobbs, Paula A. Monopoli
Faculty Scholarship
The recent decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health has been characterized as an outlier because its effect is to erase a previously recognized constitutional right. This paper situates Dobbs in a broader feminist constitutional history. It asks if this retrenchment is really such a unique turn in American jurisprudence when it comes to protections or “rights” that matter most to women’s lived experience. The paper argues that if one opens the aperture of constitutional history to embrace a more capacious view of rights, those afforded to women have often been eroded or erased by state legislatures, Congress, and courts. …
A New E.R.A. Or A New Era? Amendment Advocacy And The Reconstitution Of Feminism, Serena Mayeri
A New E.R.A. Or A New Era? Amendment Advocacy And The Reconstitution Of Feminism, Serena Mayeri
All Faculty Scholarship
Scholars have largely treated the reintroduction of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) after its ratification failure in 1982 as a mere postscript to a long, hard-fought, and ultimately unsuccessful campaign to enshrine women’s legal equality in the federal constitution. This Article argues that “ERA II” was instead an important turning point in the history of legal feminism and of constitutional amendment advocacy. Whereas ERA I had once attracted broad bipartisan support, ERA II was a partisan political weapon exploited by advocates at both ends of the ideological spectrum. But ERA II also became a vehicle for feminist reinvention. Congressional consideration …