The Oscars never fail to be a topic of discussion, but when box office hits depict historical events and political movements, sometimes they can generate more than just gossip. That was the case with this year’s Academy Award nominee “Lincoln.”

After a trip to the theater with his family, Dr. Ranjan Batra, a University of Mississippi Medical Center professor of neurobiology and anatomical sciences, took a deeper look at Mississippi’s role in the ratification of the 13th Amendment. His digging found that due to a clerical error, Mississippi had not yet officially abolished slavery.

This may seem like an alarming oversight, but the 13th Amendment is not the only landmark amendment that hasn’t been ratified by all states. In fact, the Equal Rights Amendment hasn’t been adopted in the U.S. Constitution at all.

Written in 1923 by Alice Paul, the Equal Rights Amendment was thought of as a subsequent step to securing women’s rights in the U.S. after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. The ERA, which protects the equal application of the Constitution to all U.S. citizens regardless of gender, was introduced into every session of Congress after it was written and finally passed the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in 1972. It was then sent to the states to gain the necessary 38 ratifications in order to be formally adopted into the Constitution. Despite an extension of the typical seven-year ratification period, the ERA lost momentum and remains three states short.

The 15 states that chose not to ratify the ERA is surprising to some, especially considering that DePaul calls one of them home.

Illinoisrequired a three-fifths supermajority vote in each house to pass the ratification of the ERA, which it never fully met. This is not to say that the women of Illinois do not enjoy freedom from legal sex discrimination. Despite the fact that Illinois never ratified the ERA, it did include a gender discrimination clause in Section 18 of its Bill of Rights. Four other states that did not ratify the ERA created a version of it in their Constitutions.

Though The Equal Pay Act, Pregnancy Discrimination Act and Titles VII and IX of the Civil Rights Act protect women from sex discrimination, proponents of the ERA argue that they are not enough. Anti-discrimination laws can be amended or repealed by Congress through a simple majority and may not be enforced as strongly as a Constitutional amendment would be.

“You cannot violate the constitution,” said Christina Rivers, an associate professor of political science at DePaul. “To enshrine it in an amendment makes it more permanent and could lend weight to why other statutory laws should be passed.”

Ratification of the ERA could also affect international perception of the U.S. in the area of gender equality. As the land of the free, the absence of an equal rights provision in the U.S. Constitution raises questions on how free Americans really are.

“I could see how it could lead to critiques of hypocrisy on gender equality,” said Rivers. “On one hand, compared to developing countries we’re way ahead of the game, but compared to some of our peers, we may be behind.”

Supporters of the ERA believe that the rights and dreams laid out in the Constitution should be obtainable for all citizens regardless of gender.

“We shall not be safe until the principle of equal rights is written into the framework of our government,” said Alice Paul, the creator of the ERA, at Seneca Falls in 1923.

Historically, the women’s rights movement was inspired and propelled by the abolishment of slavery and the civil rights movement. Could recent strides in equality for the LGBTQA community and the healthcare debate revive a new wave in the fight for gender equality?