Professor Julie Suk’s comments during a Radcliffe Institute virtual panel on the Equal Rights Amendment were quoted in an article by The Harvard Crimson covering the panel.
Leading legal experts discussed the decades-long campaign for the adoption of the Equal Rights Amendment at a virtual panel hosted by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study on Tuesday, which marked the 50th anniversary of the ERA’s passage through the U.S. Senate.
The event, titled “Equal Rights and Wrongs,” featured Columbia Law School professor Jamal K. Greene ’99 and Fordham University law professor Julie C. Suk ’97. Harvard history professor Jane Kamensky moderated the panel, which drew more than 200 attendees.
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Suk said the adoption of the ERA would be consistent with existing provisions in other democracies such as France, Germany, and Ukraine — whose constitutions guarantee equal rights for women and men.
In an interview after the event, Suk said current debates on the ERA boil down to disagreements over how it should be interpreted.
“It’s possible to interpret [the ERA]to mean that you always have to treat men and women the same, but it’s also possible to interpret that to mean you can recognize differences to address disadvantages that now exist,” Suk said.