Congress passed an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution in the early 1970s. But after a 10-year lobbying effort on both sides, the amendment fell three states short of ratification. Since then, the ERA has been reintroduced in every session of Congress but hasn’t gone anywhere. Polls continue to show widespread support for a constitutional guarantee of women’s rights. But a series of decisions by the Supreme Court have denied claims of sex discrimination by women. A legal scholar on how an Equal Rights Amendment would address ongoing pay inequity, workplace discrimination and violence against women