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From: renner@uiucdcs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: ERA
Message-ID: <31600090@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 6-Oct-84 22:37:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.31600090
Posted: Sat Oct  6 22:37:00 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 8-Oct-84 02:54:35 EDT
References: <319@hou2g.UUCP>
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Nf-ID: #R:hou2g:-31900:uiucdcs:31600090:000:1141
Nf-From: uiucdcs!renner    Oct  6 21:37:00 1984

>  > Having the Equal Rights Amendment would give women a tool to use 
>  > in court for proving discrimination.  
>  
>  Wrong again! The ERA simply says that no laws shall be written at any
>  legislative level discriminating against women. It has no definiton of
>  what discrimination is, ie dress codes discussed earlier. It still
>  remains up to the court to decide what is discrimination and what isn't.
>  				-- Andy Banta (agz@pucc-k)

This is only half right.  If the ERA is adopted, then it will be up to the
courts to decide what is discrimination.  But the courts will have power to
review more than supposed discrimination in federal, state, and local
laws.  The amendment states that "equal rights under the law shall not be
denied or abridged by the United States or any State;" it is not clear from
the wording that the judicial review shall be limited only to invalidation
of discriminatory laws, and I am aware of no precedent in constitutional
law which defines the meaning of this phrase.  It will therefore be up to
the Supreme Court to define the scope of this amendment.

Scott Renner
{pur-ee,ihnp4}!uiucdcs!renner