In the spring of 1972, Congress attempted to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. They expected it to gain ratification as the Twenty-Sixth Amendment to the Constitution. This amendment would guarantee that citizens not be deprived of a law-given right based on gender. (1) Members of Congress actively pursued ratification. Congress passed the statute for this amendment in March 1972, and law requires ratification within seven years of its proposal. By its deadline, only thirty-five of the necessary thirty-eight states had ratified the amendment. In an attempt to gain the remaining three ratifications, Congress extended the deadline to 1982. However to this day, despite this extension the amendment remains dormant. (2) Regardless of the exclusion of the equal rights amendment from the Constitution, women made strides towards equality with men. However, a very significant achievement towards gender equality occurred in the United States Service Academies. In 1974, the U.S. Air Force and Naval Academies rejected two women applicants, whose names remained anonymous in news reports. This started the litigation process that eventually made the service academies coeducational. (3 The academies used gender discrimination to deny them entrance. Frustrated, the women filed suit, challenging the single sex makeup of service academies. Each of the heads of the service academies, along with Deputy Secretary of Defense William P. Clements, Jr., filed affidavits encouraging a government motion to dismiss the suit. (4) The women won the assistance of their congressmen, who publicly supported them in this case. Together, these women and their representatives responded to the government's attempt to end the suit. Observers of this case predicted it would eventually go to the Supreme Court. (5)
