On this day in 1918, Florence Chadwick was born. In the 1950s, she held the world record for swimming the 21-miles from England to France. Here she is congratulating Bill Pickering, who broke her world record by 36 minutes. Six weeks later, she beat Pickering’s time by 11 minutes. #WeTheMen

On this day in 1910, women in Washington state won a constitutional amendment prohibiting sex-based disenfranchisement. The vote (52,299 to 29,676) made Washington the fifth state to extend voting rights to women. It ended a 14-year period with no state-wide suffragist victories. #WeTheMen

On this day in 1916, Jeannette Rankin became the first woman elected to Congress. In 1917, she told fellow suffragists: “I may be the first woman member of Congress, but I won’t be the last.” Rankin is still the only woman to have represented Montana in Congress. #WeTheMen

On this day in 1874, Nellie Griswold Francis was born. She became a suffragist and civil rights champion. After a white mob lynched three black carnival workers in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1920, she wrote an anti-lynching bill and helped push the reform through the Minnesota Legislature. #WeTheMen

Wondering what you can do to help protect and defend the rule of law? It was my pleasure to appear with retired Minnesota Supreme Court Justice David Lillehaug on the first episode of the Hennepin County Bar Association’s Rule of Law 101 podcast. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/h...

I am excited to host Tom Schmidt today at the @umnlawschool.bsky.social Public Law Workshop. He will be speaking about his paper with Gillian Metzger, “Some Realism About Constitutional Remedies.” I am looking forward to the conversation!

On this day in 1917, NY women won equal voting rights. The referendum victory—703,129 votes to 600,776—came after years of suffrage marches in NY and a hard-fought loss in a 1915 NY referendum. The victory helped set the stage for the final push for the Nineteenth Amendment. #WeTheMen

On this day in 1968, Shirley Chisholm became the first African American woman elected to Congress. When she reintroduced the ERA in 1969, she argued that women's "incredible scarcity in the upper level jobs” proved that “existing laws are not adequate to secure equal rights for women.” #WeTheMen

On this day in 1872, Susan B. Anthony voted in the presidential election, decades before NY enfranchised women in 1917. She was arrested and fined $100. Anthony refused to pay, and legal authorities did not pursue enforcement because they wanted to block her ability to appeal. #WeTheMen

OTD, Virginia will elect its first female governor. 18 states have never had a woman governor: California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia & Wisconsin. #WeTheMen

On this day in 1970, Phyllis Schlafly lost her congressional race. While campaigning, she acknowledged that her opponent “says a woman’s place is in the home.” After her defeat, she launched an anti-ERA campaign that denied the persistence of discrimination against women. #WeTheMen

On this day in 1936, Rose Elizabeth Bird was born. She became the first woman to serve on the California Supreme Court (1977-1987). She lost a retention election after conservative critics mobilized around her opposition to the death penalty. #WeTheMen

On this day in 1609, Matthew Hale was born. He became an English judge & lawyer. Hale thought husbands had a right to rape their wives & that women could be witches. While overruling Roe, the Supreme Court repeatedly cited Hale as a “great” and “eminent” legal authority. #WeTheMen wapo.st/3Yoia2F

On this Halloween, here is a recent obituary for Patricia Crowther, a self-identified witch. She linked attacks on witches to anti-feminism & defended witches "against accusations that they turned men into toads." Happy Halloween! www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/s...

OTD in 1756, Lydia Chapin Taft became the 1st woman to vote in New England. She voted in Uxbridge, MA in favor of funding the French & Indian Wars. Her wealthy family had no surviving males over 10 & funding supporters needed her vote to win. #WeTheMen newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/lydia-chapin...

I am excited to host @marinklevy.bsky.social today at the @umnlawschool.bsky.social Public Law Workshop. She will be speaking about her paper with @zclopton.bsky.social, “Local Rulemaking.” I am looking forward to the conversation!

On this day in 1929, a stock market crash launched the Great Depression. Public & private employers responded by intensifying their longstanding hostility to hiring married women. Before the crash, just 39.0% of cities would hire married women as teachers. That dropped to 23.4% in 1930–31. #WeTheMen

OTD in 1886, suffragists protested while men dedicated the Statue of Liberty. Lillie Devereux Blake explained that “while men at the base of the great statue are honoring Liberty represented as a woman, we women on board our boat will uplift our voices in demanding liberty for woman.” #WeTheMen

On this day in 1922, Ruby Dee was born. She became an actress, author, and civil rights activist. In this interview, she reflected on the “sea of people” in the “integrated crowd” that joined the 1963 March on Washington. #WeTheMen www.youtube.com/watch?v=cybw...

On this day in 1916, police raided Margaret Sanger’s birth control clinic in Brooklyn, the first such clinic in the U.S. The clinic purportedly violated the Comstock Act of 1873, which prohibits circulation of “obscene” or “indecent” information. That act remains in place to date. #WeTheMen

One of the q's on the new citizenship test is incorrect. 1920 is not when "all women" got the right to vote. The 19th A prohibited sex-based disenfranchisement, but didn't guarantee voting. Many women, esp. women of color, remained disenfranchised. #WeTheMen www.washingtonpost.com/nation/inter...

On this day in 1774, Penelope Barker organized 50 women in Edenton, NC, to sign a resolution boycotting British tea. The “Edenton Tea Party” was women’s 1st recorded political protest in America. This English cartoon mocked the protesters as supposedly immoral women and neglectful mothers. #WeTheMen

On this day in 1830, Belva Lockwood was born. She became a pioneering attorney and 1884 presidential candidate. In 1894, she challenged Virginia's refusal to admit her to the state bar. She lost, even though VA’s statute explicitly authorized admission to “any person” admitted elsewhere. #WeTheMen

On this day in 1834, Abigail Scott Duniway was born. After unsuccessfully attempting to vote in the 1872 election, she helped found the Oregon State Woman Suffrage Association. Oregon’s men voted against woman suffrage five times before Oregon women finally won the ballot in 1912. #WeTheMen

On this day in 2021, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform held a hearing on the Equal Rights Amendment. Lawyers and advocates urged Congress to recognize the ERA’s ratification as complete. Congress has yet to act. #WeTheMen oversightdemocrats.house.gov/legislation/...

On this day in 1964, Kamala Harris was born. Her address accepting the Dem VP nom. foregrounded the generations of African American women who worked for “equality, liberty, and justice for all.” “We’re not often taught their stories” but “as Americans, we all stand on their shoulders.” #WeTheMen

On this day in 1971, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Reed v. Reed. Sally Reed successfully challenged an Idaho law favoring men over women as administrators of their relatives’ estates. Her victory was the 1st time the Ct had ever agreed that a law denied women equal protection. #WeTheMen

On this day in 1864, Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson was born. She passed “unusually severe” exams to become the 1st woman & the 1st black woman licensed to practice medicine in Alabama. After earning her license, she served as a medical doctor for the Tuskegee Institute. #WeTheMen

On this day in 1895, Marguerite Rawalt was born. She led the National Federation of Business and Professional Women. When male senators tried to remove a prohibition on sex discrimination in employment from Title VII, the BPW “made the telegraph wires hot, and got the letters pouring in.” #WeTheMen

On this day in 2017, Alyssa Milano tweeted that anyone who had “been sexually harassed or assaulted” should “write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet.” The #MeToo hashtag went viral, using a phrase that social activist Tarana Burke had introduced a decade earlier. #WeTheMen #MeToo

On this day in 1851, Indiana held its first Woman’s Rights Convention in Dublin. The activists called for woman suffrage, equal educational opportunities, and equal pay for equal work. Amanda M. Way was the group’s elected vice president. #WeTheMen

I am in Nashville @vanderbiltlaw. Today at noon, I will be talking about my new book, We the Men: How Forgetting Women’s Struggles for Equality Perpetuates Inequality. I am looking forward to the conversation! #WeTheMen

On this day in 1897, Edith Spurlock Sampson was born. In 1950, she became the 1st African Am named to the permanent US delegation to the UN. In 1962, when she won a seat on the Chicago Municipal Court, she became the 1st black woman in the US to win a popular election for a judgeship. #WeTheMen

On this day in 1971, the Equal Rights Amendment passed the House of Representatives. The vote (354 to 24) was overwhelming and bipartisan. It had taken advocates almost a half century to get there. The struggle for the ERA continues to this day. #WeTheMen

On this day in 1884, Eleanor Roosevelt was born. As 1st Lady, she lobbied FDR to appoint more women & championed racial justice. In 1960, she chaired the President’s Commission on the Status of Women, which released a trailblazing study documenting the pervasiveness of sex discrimination. #WeTheMen

On this day in 1911, Cal. became the 6th state to extend equal voting rights to women. Bertha Margaret Boye created this poster for the Cal. referendum & it became the most popular poster from the woman suffrage movement. Suffragists called the poster’s yellow hue “the color of success.” #WeTheMen

I am excited to be hosting @nicholasbednar.bsky.social today at the @umnlawschool.bsky.social Public Law Workshop. He will be speaking about his paper, “Presidential Control of the Civil Service.” I am looking forward to the conversation!

On this day in 1911, suffragists & anti-suffs prepared for a California referendum the next day. Anti-suff Harry E. Deane said: “We now feel sure that a great many men have made the women promises without any intention of voting for them.” Maybe so, but suffs narrowly won the referendum. #WeTheMen

This obituary for Joan Kennedy highlights how Ted used her for political advantage while claiming credit for any victories. #WeTheMen www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/u...

I'm excited to be speaking today at the Women’s Organization of the Minnesota Historical Society about my new book, We the Men: How Forgetting Women's Struggles for Equality Perpetuates Inequality. I'm looking forward to the conversation! #WeTheMen

On this day in 1881, Esther Lape was born. She led the effort to win Senate approval for U.S. participation in the Permanent Court of International Justice, which lost by 7 votes in 1935. She also fought the American Medical Association in mobilizing for universal health insurance. #WeTheMen

This was a fun conversation!

On this day in 2025, Trump continues to block placing Harriet Tubman’s image on the front of the $20 bill but wants to place his own portrait on a $1 coin. #WeTheMen www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/u...

Professor @jillhasday.bsky.social, Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Centennial Professor in Law, was interviewed on @mprnews.org about presidential powers and President Trump’s authority to deploy troops domestically. z.umn.edu/aro0

Want to know more about whether Trump has legal authority to deploy troops domestically? I spoke with @MPRnews. www.mprnews.org/story/2025/1...

On this day in 1920, Kathryn Clarenback was born. She became a co-founder of the National Org. for Women & the driving force behind planning the 1977 National Women’s Conference, the first such conference the federal government had ever sponsored. #WeTheMen onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/this-womans-...

@jillhasday.bsky.social was interviewed by ABC News about Hegseth's speech to military leadership last week, where he announced the implementation of ‘gender-neutral’ fitness standards for the military with men and women req to meet the same minimum physical performance benchmarks. z.umn.edu/arj5

Wondering how the Trump Administration’s antifeminism fits within the long history of women’s struggles for equality? I spoke with @NewBooksNetwork about my book, We the Men: How Forgetting Women’s Struggles for Equality Perpetuates Inequality. #WeTheMen newbooksnetwork.com/we-the-men

On this day in 1917, Fannie Lou Hamer was born. She became a civil rights crusader who risked her life in mobilizing to make the right to vote a practical reality for people of color. She asked: “Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave?” #WeTheMen

On this day in 2025, SecDef Hegseth seems unenthusiastic about women in the military. I spoke to @ABC: “Obviously, physical fitness can be important for many military roles, but it’s not the only thing that’s important. You don’t win a war through push-ups.” #WeTheMen abcnews.go.com/Health/hegse...