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Law students across the country are taking on the so-called tampon tax on Nov. 20.

Aspiring attorneys from two dozen law schools in states that tax menstrual products plan to purchase those items and send in tax refund claims to their respective state taxation agencies as both a form of protest and a bid to raise awareness about what they view as the unfairness of such taxes.

Wednesday's coordinated efforts are spearheaded by the Tax Free. Period project, a collaboration between the nonprofit advocacy group Period Equity and menstrual products maker Lola. Fordham University School of Law's Legislative and Policy Advocacy Clinic took the lead in organizing law student participation in the action, which also includes writing to state lawmakers and state departments of revenue about the unconstitutional nature of tampon taxes. Currently, 33 states have a tampon tax on the books, including Texas, Georgia and California, although the Golden State has adopted a temporary reprieve from collecting taxes on menstrual products.

"The state governments that continue to tax menstrual products have created a tax that is solely directed at people who menstruate," said Mary Kate Cunningham, a third-year Fordham law student who is organizing law school participation. "It's unconstitutional because it's a government action that is solely on the basis of sex."

Period Equity, which was established in 2015, also has Big Law ties. Among the firms that have offered pro bono services are Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr; Mayer Brown; Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; Hausfeld; and Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady.

The law students, after purchasing menstrual products on Wednesday, will send in their refund claims along with the receipts showing that they paid state sales tax on those items, to either their state tax authority or department of revenue. They are being asked to post photos of their receipts and claims to social media in order to raise awareness of the tampon tax issue and show that the campaign against such taxes is national in scope.

In addition to spreading the word about the tampon tax, which generates an estimated $150 million for states annually, organizers hope the campaign will prompt state tax authorities to think critically about how menstrual products are taxed, said Fordham law professor Elizabeth Cooper, who teaches at the policy advocacy clinic. They also want to get lawmakers interested in the issue and, on a broader level, get people to talk more openly about menstruation, she said.

Emery Celli in 2016 filed a class action lawsuit over New York's tampon tax, and lawmakers eliminated the tax a few months later. Since 2016, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Nevada, and Rhode Island have also eliminated the tax on menstrual products.

But that leaves many other states where women are still taxed on menstrual products, despite the fact that food and some other toiletries are exempt. Period Equity co-founder Jennifer Weiss-Wolf and University of California Berkeley School of Law dean Erwin Chemerinsky published an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times last summer arguing that there is wide public support for the elimination of tampon taxes, which are by nature unconstitutional.

"The tampon tax amounts to sex-based discrimination in violation of the equal protection clause, both under state and federal constitutions—making it more than merely unfair or inequitable, but unconstitutional and therefore illegal," they wrote.

The Tax Free. Period project aims to end such tampon taxes by Tax Day 2020.