CARBONDALE, IL — Two key players in the battle over the Equal Rights Amendment will once again share a campus stage as part of Southern Illinois University Carbondale's celebration of Women's History Month.

Karen DeCrow, former president of the pro-ERA National Organization for Women, and Phyllis Schlafly, head of STOP ERA and founder of a national volunteer organization now called Eagle Forum, will reflect on the issues behind that struggle and the legacy it left for women, the women's movement and American politics.

This free event begins at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 2, in the Hiram H. Lesar Law School Auditorium. A public reception will follow the program.

"The ERA galvanized women left and right, and many prominent women today cut their activist teeth on this battle," says historian Jonathan J. Bean, who, with the help of SIUC's Women's Studies program, organized the History Month retrospective.

Directions from the North: Take US-51 South to Carbondale. Turn right on IL-13 West. Turn left at Oakland Avenue (Hollywood Video on the right corner, Burger King on the left). Drive 1 mile to Douglas Drive and turn Right. Lesar Law Building is the brick building on your right-hand side. Continue ahead to Visitors Parking. Alternate route from the North: Take IL-127 South to Murphysboro (Hardees on the right-hand side). Turn left onto IL-13 East . . . etc. as above. Directions from the South: Take US-51 North. Turn left on IL-13 West. Turn left at Oakland Avenue . . . etc. as above.

"During the 1970s, DeCrow and Schlafly debated 50 times on college campuses but have not appeared on stage together since the 1980s. Since Illinois was a hotly contested state (in the battle for ratification) and never passed the ERA and Schlafly is a Southern Illinoisan, I thought it would be wonderful to get these two women here to look back on this controversy."

The Equal Rights Amendment, which outlawed gender discrimination, was first introduced in Congress in 1923 but did not pass until 1972. State legislatures then had seven years to ratify it. But while 30 of the 38 states needed for ratification OK'd the amendment within the first year, vigorous opposition from conservative groups kept it from becoming the law of the land. Despite a three-year extension, only 35 states ever endorsed ERA and 5 of those rescinded ERA, so the final count was only 30.

"The ERA died in 1982 -- the year our entering freshmen were born," Bean says.

"I think it will be particularly meaningful for them to look back at what was a formative event for people of their parents' generation."

DeCrow and Schlafly, both lawyers, remain politically active, regularly write opinion pieces for major newspapers and are popular on the lecture circuit.