Thread by @WMurphyLaw

Here’s how YOU can fight back to restore & protect all #Women’s rights:

Women's rights are under attack like never before. SCOTUS erased constitutional rights for pregnant women in #Dobbs & #TitleIX was destroyed in 2020 when most sexual misconduct on campus became legal./1

These vitally important rights for women cannot be fixed by Congress or by Biden. Indeed, Biden's recent announcement that he plans to fix the Trump-era 2020 Title IX regulations is misleading; his boondoggle 700 page proposal will not restore Title IX to its full potential. /2

Codifying Roe will not help bc there’s no constitutional guarantee that it will be ENFORCED equally on Women’s behalf. Only the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) can help by establishing a constitutional foothold to ensure full & equal protection of ALL women's rights in ALL courts./3

The ERA was ratified in 2020 and should already be our 28th Amendment, but Joe Biden is blocking it the same way Trump did. Overturning Roe and destroying Title IX would have been impossible if the ERA were in place.  /4

Biden has authority as head of the Executive Branch to simply pick up the phone & call the US Archivist & tell him to put the ERA in the Constitution, but he refuses to do so & nobody in his administration will say why Biden is opposing women's equality the same way Trump did./5

Four lawsuits have been filed to unblock/validate ERA. They’re pending in DC, Michigan, NY & RI. A victory in these courts would go far to restoring Roe & Title IX by making it illegal for any court to treat women as 2d-class people entitled to only 2d-class legal protections./6

Only ERA can ensure that women are treated as fully equal persons under all laws. Until ERA is in place women can expect more legal disasters & fewer protections for everything from equal treatment in family court to equal access to justice in sexual & domestic violence cases. /7

This nightmare began in 1868 when women were excluded from the 14th Amendment's dual guarantees of Equal Protection & Due Process. Women fought back by filling their own amendments, winning suffrage in 1920 & then in 1923 filing ERA to fix the 14th Amendment to include women./8

The ERA went nowhere until 1972 when it was finally passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification. Congress set a seven year deadline (later extended to ten) and when the deadline expired in 1982 not enough states had ratified to get the ERA into the Constitution./9

Many women gave up & assumed the ERA was dead, but then scholars began writing about how the deadline was unconstitutional so a small cadre of women started a movement to get the last few states to ratify./10

They succeeded in 2020 when Virginia became the last necessary state to ratify, but Trump refused to recognize ERA as valid & blocked it from being added to the Constitution bc of the deadline. Women then voted for Biden bc he said he supported ERA but he did nothing to help./11

In fact, Biden is continuing to block the ERA and his administration is fighting against the ERA in court the same way Trump did./12

Women can no longer afford to be partisan. Only the ERA can protect our rights & neither political party supports it. Alice Paul understood this well when she formed the fiercely non-partisan National Woman's Party in 1916 to force the Democrats to support suffrage. It worked./13

Alice Paul then turned the Woman's Party's attention to the ERA. Alas, the Woman's Party was recently & unceremoniously dissolved by malicious means but Women are not without hope./14

We can rise again in solidarity and demand full constitutional equality once and for all by establishing a party or a union, or for that matter a Facebook or TikTok group. Such a group was recently started by young Women on TikTok, called WomensEqualityNow./15

The availability of social media as an organizing tool is a gift that must urgently be exploited in the immediate aftermath of such horrific mistreatment of Women’s fundamental rights under Roe and Title IX./16

The recent destruction of Women’s rights is a deeply anti-democratic act of state violence that should incite a revolutionary response. If an activist court can destroy Women’s basic human rights, then other activist courts can restore them by validating the ERA./17

Four courts have the opportunity to do exactly that. All we need is one judge to push the direction of Women’s rights back toward full equality by responding to the Supreme Court's outrageous decision with new court rulings that validate ERA with a vengeance./18

Please do what you can to support these lawsuits. Contact information for the lawyers in charge of the cases is listed below.

They need your help.
It's our only hope./19

Rhode Island - Amy Rice and Megan Sheehan, [e-mail], [e-mail]
New York - Deirdre Hay, [e-mail]
Michigan - Mary Mahoney, [e-mail]

In solidarity for ALL Women & in support of full equality for ALL people, now.