The Equal Rights Amendment, which would prohibit discrimination based on gender, was sent to the states for ratification in 1972. Congress set a deadline of 1979 for three-quarters of state legislatures to ratify the amendment, then extended it to 1982.

As one of his last acts before leaving office, President Joe Biden said on Friday he believes that the Equal Rights Amendment has been officially ratified and therefore is now part of the U.S. Constitution.

U.S. President Joe Biden called the Equal Rights Amendment "the law of the land," on Friday, backing an effort to enshrine the change into the U.S.

In his final week as president, Biden is using his bully pulpit to try to push forward the amendment that would enshrine sex equality in the U.S. Constitution.

Did Florida ever ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, the 1972 amendment that declared women equal under the law?

The outgoing US president called on others to ‘affirm’ the amendment, which bars discrimination on the basis of sex.

But Biden’s assertion may amount to little more than an expression of his opinion, with the White House acknowledging that it has no immediate force of law — and wouldn’t order the nation’s archivist to formally add it to the Constitution.