Nitpick. That wasn’t the debate. Anti-discrimination laws indisputably apply to private businesses. Nobody disputed the idea that Masterpiece Cakeshop would have to sell a dozen cookies or a premade cake to a gay or lesbian person.
The narrow argument in that case was that by requiring Masterpiece Cakeshop to bake a custom made wedding cake for a same sex marriage, the anti-discrimination law violated the Constitution by infringing on the freedom of speech and religion of the owners.
Further, this was a Colorado state law and had nothing to do with specific grants of power to the federal government. With or without the ERA or the 14th Amendment, private anti-discrimination laws are a separate beast. They are either enacted by the plenary power of a state government or under the interstate commerce clause by the feds.
You’re correct that the legal arguments about Masterpiece Cakeshop were about a religious exemption from anti-discrimination laws. I was referring to the debate about the issue here on the boards. As I remember it, there was quite a bit of discussion about whether a private business should be allowed to discriminate, regardless of whether it was for religious reasons.
All of which is a bit beside the point. If, as you say, anti-discrimination laws indisputably apply to private businesses, I can’t see how an Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution wouldn’t apply to admissions at single-gender colleges, whether public or private.
I hope one of our resident legal eagles will correct me if I’m wrong, but amendments to the Constitution aren’t inherently limited to the actions of government. The 13th Amendment prohibited anyone from owning slaves. The 18th Amendment prohibited anyone from manufacturing or selling alcohol, until the 21st Amendment said they could again. Those amendments applied to private businesses and individuals, so it seems to be within the bounds of constitutional authority.
Reading the text of the ERA on Wikipedia, though, I’m not quite so sure.
Maybe it does apply to treatment under the law only. If that’s the case, and the amendment did pass, I wonder how noticeable the effects would even be.
I suspect that it would have similar effects to the first amendment which, for examples, allowed a religion to discriminate which is why it’s entirely legal in the US for the Catholic Church to only permit men to be clergy, or some types of private clubs to bar members of other races.
Meaning that some of the scare tactics about what it would or wouldn’t require wouldn’t apply. You could still have men-only or women only clubs at least on a small scale, as an example.
