The Bad Grade That Changed the U.S. Constitution

The 27th Amendment, proposed by James Madison in 1789, says that congressional pay changes cannot take effect until after an election, allowing voters to respond. It was not ratified by enough states at the time, but unlike many proposed amendments, it had no deadline. In 1982, University of Texas student Gregory Watson found it while researching a government paper and argued that it could still be adopted. His teaching assistant gave the paper a C, and professor Sharon Waite upheld the grade. Watson took the setback as a challenge and resolved to get the amendment ratified.

Ratification required approval from 38 states. Nine had already voted for the amendment, leaving Watson to persuade 29 more. He wrote lawmakers across the country, and Senator William Cohen helped set the effort in motion in Maine, which ratified it in 1983. Other states followed, with the final approvals arriving in May 1992, more than 200 years after the amendment was proposed. The account shows how sustained individual activism can overcome the deliberately difficult process of changing the Constitution. Watson later secured Mississippi’s symbolic ratification of the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery. Waite eventually recognized the significance of her former student’s work and, 35 years after grading his paper, changed his grade from a C to an A.