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State-Level Equal Rights Amendments

A majority of state constitutions have gender equality provisions.

Last Updated: December 6, 2022
Published: August 26, 2022

In the United States, the fight for a federal Equal Rights Amendment has been a century in the making.

Meanwhile, state-level equivalents abound. Some are comprehensive provisions of state constitutions that guarantee equal rights regardless of an individual’s gender, and others are provisions that prohibit gender-based discrimination in specific circumstances.

State courts and constitutions are becoming increasingly important in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization as well as federal courts’ growing hostility to many forms of civil rights protection. In the coming months and years, litigants may increasingly turn to state-level Equal Rights Amendments. 

What follows is a summary of the constitutional protections afforded in the 50 states. It is not intended to be exhaustive and may change and evolve in real time.

Summary of State-Level ERA Provisions

Key:

States with ERAs

States with limited gender equality provisions

States with active state ERA ratification efforts

States with no ERA

States:

This summary report was researched and prepared by Sadie Logerfo-Olsen (Fordham Law School) and Katie Hawkinson (Georgetown University) during their 2022 summer internship at the Brennan Center for Justice. Alicia Bannon, director of the judiciary program at the Brennan Center, and Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, executive director of the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Network at NYU School of Law, conceptualized and supervised this project. Ting Ting Cheng, director of the ERA Project at Columbia Law School, provided invaluable contributions; she is currently developing model policy agendas for state executives to robustly implement state ERAs.

A version of this resource was also published in Ms. magazine.

UPDATE: This resource has been updated to state that Minnesota ratified the federal ERA on February 8, 1973.

UPDATE: This resource has been updated to reflect that Nevada voted to amend its state constitution to add an Equal Rights Amendment on November 8, 2022.