Everyone knows the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, in August 1920, dramatically expanded women’s right to vote. Women had only acquired that right in certain states. Now it promised women in our republic change in their political, civil, and social status. What most Americans don’t realize is the degree to which the Nineteenth’s constitutional meaning was debated.
To celebrate Constitution Day and the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies in partnership with the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation welcomed Professor Paula Monopoli of the University of Maryland School of Law on September 24, 2020. In her new book, Constitutional Orphan: Gender Equality and the Nineteenth Amendment, Professor Monopoli explored the role of suffragists in the constitutional development of the Nineteenth Amendment.
Moderated by Gleaves Whitney, Executive Director of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, Professor Monopoli drew on historical sources, case analysis, and legal scholarship, as she offered broader ways in which the Nineteenth Amendment could be interpreted and used today. Professor Monopoli highlighted how she selected the book's name --- which included a combination from the roles of suffragists and the lack of the 19th amendment being used in court precedent, introduction of some of the leading suffragists that worked to pass the 19th Amendment, and reviewing the question "Does the 19th Amendment give women the right to vote....or does it exclude states from denying women the right to vote (giving states the authority to provide women the right to vote)?"
Watch the Program Here
When
September 24, 2020
Program Supporters
Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation
Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum
About Paula Monopoli
Paula Monopoli is the Sol & Carlyn Hubert Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law where she founded its Women, Leadership & Equality Program. She holds an appointment as a Visiting Scholar at the Møller Institute, Churchill College, University of Cambridge. Professor Monopoli received her B.A, cum laude, from Yale College, and her J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. She teaches in the areas of Property, Trusts & Estates and Gender and the Law.
Professor Monopoli has published widely on the intersection of gender and constitutional design. She is the author of Constitutional Orphan: Gender Equality and the Nineteenth Amendment (Oxford University Press 2020) and three previous books, American Probate, Law and Leadership, and Contemporary Trusts and Estates. Her articles include “Gender and Constitutional Design” in the Yale Law Journal, “Marriage, Property and [In]Equality” in the Yale Law Journal Online, “Gender and Justice: Parity and the United States Supreme Court” in The Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law, and “The Gendered State and Women’s Political Leadership” (with McDonagh) in Feminist Constitutionalism. Professor Monopoli has presented her research at Oxford University, University College Dublin, Yale Law School, the University of Michigan Law School and the University of Texas Law School, among many others.
Professor Monopoli is an elected member of the American Law Institute and she is an Academic Fellow of the American College of Trusts and Estates Counsel. She has received a number of teaching awards, including the University-wide Founders Week award, the law school’s Outstanding Professor of the Year award and Maryland’s Top 25 Women Professors by StateStats.org. Professor Monopoli has also been selected as one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women by the Daily Record.
