Word: equality
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Jersey will never confederate on the plan," he declared. "She would be swallowed up. I will never consent to the present system . . . Myself or my state will never submit to tyranny or despotism." The supporters of the Virginia plan were no less vehement. "Are not the citizens of Pennsylvania equal to those of New Jersey?" demanded James Wilson of Pennsylvania. "Does it require 150 of the former to balance 50 of the latter? . . . If the small states will not confederate on this plan, Pennsylvania would not confederate on any other...
Fifteen years have passed since Congress overwhelmingly endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment. Five years have elapsed since the measure, battered by scare talk of homosexual marriages, unisex bathrooms and female combat duty, went to its death, just three states shy of the 38 needed for ratification. Yet the ERA's 24 key words -- "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex" -- simply refuse to go away. Fifty-one Senators are now cosponsoring an effort to launch the amendment again, and the National Organization...
...lack of momentum stems in part from a series of Supreme Court decisions. Since the early 1970s, the court has used the 14th Amendment's equal-protection clause to strike down gender discrimination, thereby rendering the ERA somewhat redundant. Moreover, like the 14th Amendment, the ERA would apply only to government action. For instance, while it would offer protection to female government workers at the federal, state and local levels, it would not shield women from abuses by private employers...
...activists is that new corporate owners, whether they are local South Africans or foreign employers, will not follow the nondiscriminatory employment practices that were observed by most U.S. businesses. Warns Dr. Oscar Dhlomo, Minister of Education in the KwaZulu homeland: "The door that had opened to a life of equal opportunity on the factory floor has suddenly been slammed in the black worker's face...
...Blacks can do too--even if it means killing young people as a result of irrational fear. Is society so crime-ridden that it is just assumed that vigilantism is all right? And is our challenge now merely to ensure that racism not prevent Blacks from having the equal opportunity to act outside the law in self-defense? The recent flurry of commentary on the Goetz case suggests that we are at such a point, that indeed common sense has become the latest victim of the streets...