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VietnameseGriffin: ‘Cities and states must have the flexibility to move employees around to deliver the best services to their constituents and meet critical needs’
LITTLE ROCK – Attorney General Tim Griffin today issued the following statement after filing an amicus brief on behalf of a 16-state coalition of state attorneys general in the United States Supreme Court in the matter of Muldrow v. City of St. Louis:
“Cities and states must have the flexibility to move employees around to deliver the best services to their constituents and meet critical needs. That’s why we are urging the Supreme Court to reject the claim that entirely lateral employee transfers are actionable under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“Our brief explains that allowing plaintiffs to challenge such lateral transfers would impair the ability of state and local governments to fill vital positions in understaffed schools, child support offices, or, as in this very case, an urban police department precinct with a violent crime problem.”
The plaintiff in Muldrow challenges the City of St. Louis’s decision to transfer her to another, equivalent role within the city’s police department. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held that the City of St. Louis did not violate Title VII when it transferred her to a different, equivalent job inside the city police department.
Griffin was joined in his brief by the attorneys general of Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.
To read the brief, click here.
About Attorney General Tim Griffin
Tim Griffin was sworn in as the 57th Attorney General of Arkansas on January 10, 2023, having previously served as the state’s 20th Lieutenant Governor from 2015-2023. From 2011-2015, Griffin served as the 24th representative of Arkansas’s Second Congressional District, where he served on the House Committee on Ways and Means, House Armed Services Committee, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, House Committee on Ethics and House Committee on the Judiciary while also serving as a Deputy Whip for the Majority.
Griffin has served as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps for more than 27 years and currently holds the rank of colonel. In 2005, Griffin was mobilized to active duty as an Army prosecutor at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and served with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) in Mosul, Iraq.
He is currently serving as the Commander of the 2d Legal Operations Detachment in New Orleans, Louisiana. His previous assignments include serving as the Commander of the 134th Legal Operations Detachment at Fort Liberty (née Bragg), North Carolina, and as a Senior Legislative Advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness at the Pentagon. Griffin earned a master’s degree in strategic studies as a Distinguished Honor Graduate from the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.
Griffin also served as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, and Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of Political Affairs for President George W. Bush; Special Assistant to Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff, Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice; Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Arkansas; Senior Investigative Counsel, Government Reform and Oversight Committee, U.S. House of Representatives; and Associate Independent Counsel, Office of Independent Counsel David M. Barrett, In re: HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros.
Griffin is a graduate of Magnolia High School, Hendrix College in Conway, and Tulane Law School in New Orleans. He attended graduate school at Oxford University. He is admitted to practice law in Arkansas (active) and Louisiana (inactive). Griffin attends Immanuel Baptist Church and lives in Little Rock with his wife, Elizabeth, a Camden native, and their three children.
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