What level of public support exists for a constitutional guarantee of equal rights for women and men?
An Opinion Research Corporation poll commissioned in 2001 by the ERA Campaign Network of Princeton, NJ shows that nearly all U.S. adults 96% believe that male and female citizens should have equal rights. The vast majority 88% also believe that the U.S. Constitution should make it clear that these rights are supposed to be equal. However, nearly three-quarters of the respondents 72% mistakenly assume that the Constitution already includes such a guarantee. By presenting these three questions without specifically mentioning the Equal Rights Amendment, the survey filtered out the negative effect of misrepresentations of the ERA by its opponents. It is clear that the citizens of the United States overwhelmingly support a constitutional guarantee of equal rights on the basis of sex, and ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment will achieve that goal.
