WVU Law Dean Joyce McConnell to discuss women and the Constituti - Business, Government Legal News from throughout WV

As part of Constitution Day, West Virginia University College of Law Dean Joyce McConnell will present "Remember the Ladies: The History of Women and the U.S. Constitution," at noon Wednesday, Sept. 19 in the Marlyn E. Lugar Courtroom at the WVU Law Center.

The event is free, and the public is invited to attend.

"Constitution Day gives us the opportunity to discover more about what is, perhaps, the most historically significant legal document in the United States and some would say, in the world," McConnell said in a news release.

McConnell categorizes women's Constitutional history into three chapters through the theories of well-known scholars. She also points out that the rights of women are not in the Constitution, and there is evidence that Thomas Jefferson purposefully excluded women, despite the efforts of Founding Father John Adams's wife, Abigail Adams.

"Equality is not woven into the fabric of the Constitution," McConnell said in a news release. "Women were not included and changing this has been a slow process with some of the most significant legal rights for women being granted in the past 50 years."

According to information from WVU, former U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, who died in 2010, sponsored the legislation that established Constitution Day in 2004. That law required all publicly funded educational institutions to provide special programming on or near that day every year.