T
he
Equal
Rights
Amendment was first
introduced to Congress
in 1923 by suffragists Alice
Paul and Crystal Eastman. In
1972, it passed in Congress,
but the necessary number of
states failed to ratify it by
the 1982 deadline. Since then,
it has incited a great deal of
debate on both sides of the
aisle. In the revolutionary and
arguably electric atmosphere
we’re living in, the Equal
Rights
Amendment
should
finally be ratified and added to
the Constitution.
The
Equal
Rights
Amendment is a proposed
amendment broken down into
three sections. The sections
read
as
follows:
“Section
1: Equality of rights under
the law shall not be denied
or abridged by the United
States or by any State on
account of sex. Section 2: The
Congress shall have the power
to enforce, by appropriate
legislation,
the
provisions
of this article. Section 3:
This amendment shall take
effect 2 years after the date
of ratification.” Supporters of
the ERA argue its necessity
is borne out of a lack of
Constitutional interpretation
of the rights of women as
an
identity
deserving
of
equality even within the 14th
Amendment.
Further, the ERA is meant
to
clearly
codify
women
and men as of equal class —
guaranteeing “equal justice
under law” on the basis of sex.
Section 1 of the ERA would be
the first explicit mention of
“women” in the Constitution.
Many who disagree with the
ERA use the 14th Amendment
and the Equal Pay Act to argue
that it would be a superfluous,
even redundant, amendment.
This is not the case. The
14th Amendment was ratified
after the Civil War and was
meant to specifically address
the immense racial injustice
in 1868. If it had effectively
acknowledged women as an
equal sex, women (at least
white women, considering that
most women of color were not
granted suffrage until decades
later) would have been granted
suffrage then as opposed to
52 years later with the 19th
Amendment in 1920. Without
the Equal Rights Amendment,
current legal protections, like
that of the Equal Pay Act, can
theoretically be removed by a
single vote. Delving even deeper,
ratification of the ERA would
emphasize the consideration and
protection
against
sex-based
discrimination legally. We must
secure a better foundation of
constitutional equality through
explicitly stating the necessity
of legal equity; without the ERA,
this cannot happen.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s
confirmation
as
a
Supreme
Court Justice was met with
unease and apprehension from
many pro-choice women (and
men). In the already turbulent,
near-apocalyptic
atmosphere,
the possibility that the progress
made by determined feminists —
such as the late Associate Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg — could
potentially be undone is enough
to pass an amendment that will
protect the major advances in
women’s rights.
Despite
having
received
ratification by the required 38
states, the ERA has been met
with many legal challenges that
have prevented its certification
as an official part of the United
States Constitution. While it
gets a bit complicated the more
that you attempt to untangle this
political and legal conundrum,
it gets boiled down to this:
there are two strategies for the
ratification of the ERA. The first
is through the Constitutional
Ratification Process in Article V
of the Constitution; a two-thirds
majority vote in the Senate and
the House of Representatives
is required before it is sent
for
three-fourths
of
state
legislatures
to
ratify.
The
second mode is known as the
“Three-State Strategy” which
emphasizes that only three more
states were needed in addition
to the 35 existing ratifications
that supporters argue should be
deemed legally viable.
It is imperative that we ratify
this amendment. By declaring
a “zero tolerance” message, the
Equal Rights Amendment gives
a megaphone to the millions of
activists who have fought for
and passed the legislation that
has continued to work toward
equality for all people.
Since its inception in 1923,
the ERA has remained an active
component
in
the
political
conversations
of
equality
and
feminism.
President-
elect Joe Biden — an avid
supporter of the ERA — has
personally
co-sponsored
the
ERA ratification nine times.
Directly
on
his
campaign’s
website,
Biden
includes
extensive
information
about
his agenda for women; within
this agenda, it explicitly states:
“as President he will work with
advocates across the country to
enshrine gender equality in our
Constitution” in reference to
passage of the ERA. With our
first female Vice President-elect
Kamala Harris alongside Biden,
it is time to learn more about
the ERA and finally see it in our
Constitution.
Wednesday, November 18, 2020
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
The terrifying world of ants puts
humans in perspective
MARGARET RUDNICK | COLUMN
Affirmative action is here to stay
JESSIE MITCHELL | COLUMN
It’s time to pass the ERA
D
onald Trump may be
on his way out, but
the war on affirmative
action
remains
ongoing.
Despite the fact that lawsuits
against universities for their
admissions policies have been
largely unsuccessful, both the
Department of Justice and
private conservative activist
groups continue to file them. In
early October, the Department
of
Justice
filed
a
lawsuit
against Yale for race-based
discrimination, adding another
high profile affirmative action
case to the mix. Though the
Supreme Court has ruled four
times in the last forty years
that
affirmative
action
is
constitutional, Harvard, the
University of Texas at Austin
and the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill are all
fighting similar suits.
The fight for schools to
remain race-conscious in an
effort to maintain diversity
and reach their educational
goals has been fought and won
many times in the nation’s
highest courts. While every
new
lawsuit
alleges
that
taking race into account is
discriminatory and ruinous
to the meritocratic principles
of this nation, time and time
again, the data does not bear
this out. It makes me wonder if
Students for Fair Admissions,
one of the primary groups
bringing these lawsuits, has
heard of legacy preference.
A
lawsuit,
brought
by
Students for Fair Admissions
against
UNC’s
admission
criteria, is continuing to a
federal trial this week. The
suit alleges that race is used
“at every stage” of determining
the admission decisions of
Black and Hispanic students.
However, statistical analyses
of the admissions decisions
differ substantially, showing
that race accounts for under
1% of decisions to up to 42% of
in-state Black applicants. UNC
denies that race is more than
one of a multitude of factors
used in admissions.
Though the Supreme Court
has held that racial quotas are
unconstitutional, affirmative
action
and
admissions
or
hiring practices that consider
race as one of many factors
were deemed permissible.
Students
for
Fair
Admissions
argue
that
diversity could be achieved
by concentrating admissions
decisions around geography
or
socioeconomics
instead
of race — a “race-neutral”
approach. UNC and Harvard,
who has also dealt with
recent
challenges
to
its
consideration
of
race
in
admissions, both claim this
proposed change would only
serve to reduce diversity.
There is plenty of evidence
to suggest that UNC and
Harvard are correct. Chicago
Public Schools used race-
based admissions as a way
to diversify its test-in high
schools until 2009, when it
turned
to
socioeconomic-
based
admissions
after
a
court mandate to integrate
students
based
on
race,
defining
them
as
either
“‘white’ or ‘minority,’” was
lifted. Socioeconomic status
as a factor for admissions
to
these
selective
high
schools was intended to help
maintain the racial diversity
of the schools.
Socioeconomic factors are
applied to census tracts in the
city, designating each census
tract tier 1-4. Schools then
take a certain percentage of
their
student
populations
from each tier, with 30% of the
seats going to the top scorers,
regardless of their tier. From
2009 to 2019, the percentage
of white students at Walter
Payton College Preparatory
High School, one of the city’s
top public high schools, has
increased from 36% to 44%,
while the percentage of Black
students has decreased from
26% to 11%. For context, the
district was about 11% white
in 2019, compared to almost
36% Black.
Not only are “race-neutral”
approaches
to
achieving
racial
diversity
in
schools
ineffective,
they
are
also
nonsensical. As argued in the
“Journal of Law Reform” at
the University of Michigan,
“a ‘race neutral alternative’
only makes sense when the
goal itself is race neutral.” For
as long as schools hold racial
diversity as important to their
educational mission, it makes
sense to be race conscious
during the admissions process.
But what about the poor
victims of affirmative action?
Depending
on
where
you
are and who you ask, these
are usually either white or
Asian
American
students.
At
Harvard,
where
the
affirmative action suit hinges
around
admissions
policies
that are allegedly unfair to
Asian
American
students,
even if all Black and Latinx
applicants were eliminated,
the
percentage
of
Asian
American students admitted
would rise by only about 1%. In
California — where affirmative
action has been banned in
the University of California
university system since 1998
— the share of Asian students
has declined, suggesting that
they were beneficiaries of
affirmative action.
In the case of UT-Austin,
the white plaintiff in Fisher v.
The University of Texas was
denied admission, but so were
168 Black or Latinx students
with grades as good or better
than hers. Affirmative action
has been a huge boost to
white women specifically, and
it is also worth noting that
at elite colleges, preference
for legacy admits plays a far
larger role than race and
disproportionately
favors
white
students.
In
other
words, if you didn’t get into
your dream school, it’s far
more likely that a white kid
took “your” spot.
Jessie Mitchell can be reached at
jessiemi@umich.edu.
MADELYN VERVAECKE | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT MIVERVAE@UMICH.EDU
JESS D’AGOSTINO | COLUMN
Jess D’Agostino can be reached at
jessdag@umich.edu.
Design courtesy of Yassmine El-Rewini
A
nts are small, numerous
and have taken over the
surface of the world.
These seemingly innocuous, tiny
creatures are deadly in their
world of thievery, conquest
and warfare. In a way that
corresponds to human nature,
some species of ants beg, borrow
and steal from neighboring
colonies to survive. Argentine
ants, in particular, have spread
throughout the world to every
continent except Antarctica in
a global imperialistic invasion.
Many parallels can be drawn
between the behaviors of ants
and humans that can allow us
to examine our own behavior in
a new light. We can and should
learn from the inner workings
of ant society.
Animals
in
nature
often
commit what we today would
view as war acts without
remorse, tearing other animals
limb from limb and eradicating
neighboring tribes or nations;
ants are no exception. They
pillage rival anthills, killing
millions of their kind almost
every day. Some ant species
resort to downright exploding
themselves to take down foes.
This kills not only the larger
attacking ant but the attacker
themselves. This ant’s only
purpose at this moment is to
die for its tribe, despite its
lifelong work of collecting food,
sustaining itself and being
useful to its colony. The ant’s
sacrifice will benefit the colony
but at the extreme expense of
taking its own life.
Ants commit the ultimate
individual sacrifice for the
sake of the colony without
hesitating
or
knowing
the
enormity of their actions to
their community. We like to
think that humans are strong
and brave for rising above
our built-in selfish natures
by committing small acts of
altruism, but this perception
needs
reconsideration.
The
average human isn’t selfless
when compared to almost any
ant in existence.
Another
perception
that
needs changing: Humans are
the ultimate social creature on
Earth, collaborating to erect
massive works of architecture
and
complex
intellectual
theories. You guessed it. Ants
are one of the most social
creatures on Earth — more so
than humans. In fact, they’re
hive creatures (the scientific
term for this is eusociality). They
do things for their colonies that
most humans wouldn’t dream
of doing for their own countries
without major consideration.
There are more than 16,000
different ant species on the
planet today. In fact, scientists
estimate
a
total
of
20,000
species of ants in existence
on Earth, which means about
4,000 species have yet to be
discovered.
Behavior
varies
between the different species
(e.g. some ant species focus on
foraging for plants while others
almost exclusively raid other
nests and insects). Despite great
physiological diversity among
species, almost all individual
ants exhibit a willingness to
sacrifice for the entire nest more
than an individual human would
for a town or country, bringing
us back to the point that human
selflessness as a construct lags
behind that of ants.
As well as being more selfless
and more social than humans,
ants do war better than we do.
Among the 16,000 total ant
species discovered, there is an
“army ant” sect that consists of
200 ant species. These aggressive
species raid other animals to
obtain food, attacking prey with
enormous
numbers.
Warrior
ants such as the Argentine ant
and the red imported fire ant
are waging wars daily, killing
and consuming hundreds of
thousands of prey animals per
day. Humans have taken over the
world in the sense that we have
conquered most of the available
land on Earth, and it’s interesting
to think that ants have already
done this; after all, they’ve had
160 million years of existence to
spread themselves around the
world. This is the consequence of
perfectly synchronized sociality
and sacrifice.
We praise the qualities of
social achievement and altruistic
behavior, but from ants we have
learned that these qualities are
not good for an animal in the
extreme. If groups of humans
were fully social or completely
altruistic, we could have mass
war on our hands — and everyone
can agree that that is not a good
thing.
Army ants have very few
means of communication relative
to humans. Visually, they can tell
night from day and distinguish
almost nothing more than that.
They can’t even form an image of
the world around them, relying
on their senses of smell and touch
for detecting vibrations. Their
only tool for communication is
the use of pheromones. However,
warrior ants are still capable of
amassing huge groups for raids,
sometimes
even
more
than
100,000 individuals — amazing
given how difficult it is for
humans to organize ourselves
with all five of our senses. Their
behavior can even inform how
computers should be organized,
because it’s miraculous that they
can successfully function socially
given their limited forms of
communication.
The world of army ants and
their ant neighbors is vicious. We
should care about ants because
their behavior so closely mirrors
our
own.
War,
cooperation,
sacrifice: Ants do each of these
things better than humans ever
have. Ants are the meta-social
epitome of what we don’t want
human society to become. Every
day, thousands of ants die as
their colonies bring chaos and
violence upon other unassuming
prey. Their environmental niche
drives them to kill millions of
other animals weekly. This is the
terrifying world that exists under
the feet of our civilization.
Margaret Rudnick can be reached
at rudnickm@umich.edu.