Power Under the Thirteenth Amendment. An employer who forced someone to work until the employee had paid off a debt would violate the Thirteenth Amendment. These activities included, among others, the right to purchase and lease property and the right to make and enforce contracts. For many years, the Supreme Court held that Congress did not have power under the Thirteenth Amendment to regulate private conduct.
The Court held that under the two statutes passed pursuant to the Thirteenth Amendment, a landlord could not refuse to rent to a black person, Jones v.
Alfred H. Mayer Co. In one sense, Congressional power under the Thirteenth Amendment is very broad, in that it can cover almost all kinds of private activities. But it is also narrow, in that it may only be used against racial discrimination, and not against other forms of discrimination, such as gender or age.
Power of the Purse. This can take the form of government contracts, for example, to build airplanes. It can also take the form of government aid, for example, grants to private universities or grants to students attending private universities.
Congress may attach almost any restrictions on the receipt of such money, as long as the restrictions themselves are not unconstitutional. Congress has passed several statutes prohibiting discrimination by those receiving federal funds. In Title IX of the Educational Amendments of , it prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex by any educational program or activity receiving federal funds. Congress responded by amending the law to make clear that if any part of an organization received funds, the whole organization was bound.
Most recently, in , the Supreme Court in Fulton v. The city had said the agency violated the non-discrimination requirements in the foster care contract. This article was first published in and has been updated extensively by encyclopedia staff, most recently in July Sara L. Zeigler contributed the original article. It has been updated by the First Amendment Encyclopedia.
Allen, David S. Balkin, J. Volokh, Eugene. Thomas, Carl. Shilepsky, Nancy S. Bernstein, David E. Zeigler Updated by John R. Vile and Deborah Fisher. Anti-Discrimination Laws [electronic resource]. Other articles in Categories of Laws and Proposed Laws.
Thus, it does not supplant the critical role of policymakers to take robust action to combat all forms of discrimination in order to ensure equality and adequate protections for women and people across the gender spectrum. This work must be done with a deep understanding of the intersectional experiences of women of color and gender minorities, in order to recognize how a combination of factors such as racial and gender biases can erect unique discriminatory barriers.
These additional legislative and executive actions—and many more 24 —are needed to hold private entities fully accountable for their conduct. Strong enforcement mechanisms are also essential to ensuring that the ERA is more than just an ideal. Opponents of the ERA have sought to undermine its passage using a variety of tactics, including by deploying alarmist language to argue that many areas where gender-specific programming exists—such as single-sex educational institutions or high school athletics—would be prohibited.
But even without the ERA, specific parameters guided by Supreme Court and other legal precedent have been developed to determine when single-sex programs are permissible, such as when they are used to compensate for the historic, societal, and economic disadvantage of a particular class. Nothing in the ERA would alter this guidance. If anything, the ERA would provide additional support for this existing legal precedent.
Furthermore, opponents point to the military draft as something women would have to contend with if the ERA is ratified. In reality, women are already commonplace in the military and have been allowed to serve in all combat roles since The potential role of the ERA in this setting would simply be to ensure that all people serving in the military are treated equally regardless of sex. Additionally, government and state officials who oppose the ERA, including a Trump appointee in the U.
Department of Justice and three Republican state attorneys general, have argued that continued state efforts to ratify the ERA are moot given the initial deadline. Advocates also dismiss the attempts of five states to rescind their ratifications, given that such attempts with the 14th and 15th Amendments were considered to lack constitutional authority and were thus ignored.
Notably, the 27th Amendment to the U. Constitution was ratified nearly years after it was introduced in the first Congress. In a moment of unprecedented attacks by the Trump administration and others against women and the programs and policies upon which they depend—and the majority of American adults supporting the ERA—the amendment seems as ripe as ever for ratification.
While often portrayed as a world leader, the United States lags behind the 76 percent of countries around the world with constitutions that guarantee equal rights for women. The ERA has certain symbolic importance, communicating unequivocally that people across the gender spectrum are innately equal and deserving of constitutional protection.
It would demonstrate fundamental respect for the value and support of women and people across the gender spectrum in the way that the country has done for the privileged and powerful since its founding. And yet, it is not a perfect, cure-all solution.
The ERA will not immediately garner rights for women and people across the gender spectrum that they do not already have under law—rights that were secured by over years of litigation and activism. What the ERA could do, however, is provide essential support in litigating sex discrimination by bolstering existing statutory protections that are currently vulnerable to attack by the Trump administration and conservative lawmakers.
Moreover, the effect of the ERA depends in large part on how it is interpreted and enforced. Constitutional protections against discrimination, and existing statutory protections for that matter, are hollow without vigorous enforcement. Laura E. Colin Seeberger Director, Media Relations. Opportunities for progress alongside the ERA The ERA represents critical progress, but it is important to recognize that its passage alone will not end discrimination overnight or result in instant equality.
Protecting and expanding access to abortion care: Lawmakers must eliminate harmful restrictions, such as targeted regulation of abortion providers TRAP laws and the Hyde Amendment, as well as expand insurance coverage of abortion care. Eliminating racial disparities in maternal health outcomes: Lawmakers must improve access to critical services; improve the quality of care provided to pregnant women; address maternal mental health; enhance supports for families before and after birth; and improve data collection and oversight, particularly with a focus on persistent racial disparities.
Combating workplace discrimination: Lawmakers must enact policies that improve protections against pay discrimination, enhance protections against workplace sexual harassment, and expand pregnancy accommodations and anti-retaliation protections for pregnant workers. Increasing wages: Lawmakers must raise the federal minimum wage, eliminate the subminimum wage for workers with disabilities, and eliminate the tipped minimum wage.
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