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VietnameseGriffin: ‘DEI initiatives are contrary to the core purpose of publicly traded companies’
LITTLE ROCK – Attorney General Tim Griffin issued the following statement after he and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey co-led a letter urging the Business Roundtable, a national association of the nation’s top CEOs, to abandon the unlawful and misguided DEI initiative previously announced by Business Roundtable:
“This letter is consistent with what I and many other state attorneys general have been saying for a long time. DEI initiatives are contrary to the core purpose of publicly traded companies. Corporations are designed to foster economic growth, create jobs, and maximize shareholder returns. Corporate officers can’t accomplish those things and fulfill their fiduciary duties if they are focused on arbitrary goals that are at best ill-defined and at worst discriminatory and offensive to most Arkansans.”
“Many of the Business Roundtable’s member CEOs are coming to this realization on their own and abandoning these practices. It’s time that all Business Roundtable members drop this harmful initiative and commit to merit-based hiring and a focus on shareholders.”
The attorneys general of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, and South Dakota signed the letter co-led by Missouri and Arkansas.
To read a copy of the letter, click here.
To download a PDF of this release, 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 is currently an officer in the Arkansas Army National Guard and holds the rank of colonel. Griffin served as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps for more than 28 years. 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.
His previous assignments include serving as the Commander of the 2d Legal Operations Detachment in New Orleans, Louisiana; the Commander of the 134th Legal Operations Detachment at Fort 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 lives in Little Rock with his wife, Elizabeth, a Camden native, and their three children.
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