EIU Media Relations

ERA Proponent to Bring Campaign to EIU Campus

A leading proponent of the Equal Rights Amendment plans to bring her campaign for the bill's ratification to the campus of Eastern Illinois University.

Laurel Prussing, former Illinois state representative from the 103 rd District, will present "ERA, Simple Justice It's Time" at 7 p.m. Monday, March 1, in the Charleston/Mattoon Room of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union. Admission to the lecture is free and open to the public.

Ratification of the federal Equal Rights Amendment came to a halt in Illinois in 1982 - three states short of needed approval before becoming federal law. As a lobbyist for the American Association of University Women in 2001, Prussing launched a revival of ERA in Illinois in 2001 and, in May 2003, the Illinois House of Representatives gave it a thumbs-up.

Now, as founder of ERA Yes!, she continues her work by leading the effort in downstate Illinois to recruit enough senators to ratify ERA. Success in doing so, she says, would give tremendous momentum to the national effort.

Prussing's lecture, sponsored by Eastern's Office of Civil Rights and Diversity, will serve as the keynote address for the university's annual Women's History and Awareness Month (March) commemoration.