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VietnameseGriffin: ‘With this injunction now in place, Arkansans of all races will be given fair and equal consideration for appointment’
LITTLE ROCK – Attorney General Tim Griffin issued the following statement after a federal district judge issued a declaratory judgment and permanent injunction in Greene v. Griffin:
“The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas today has righted a wrong that for too long allowed discrimination to be enshrined in state statute. The court has issued a permanent injunction, declaring that the requirement that the Arkansas Ethics Commission must include at least one member of a minority race is an unconstitutional racial quota that violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court’s ruling follows a joint motion that I filed yesterday with the plaintiff in this case asking for the injunction.
“I first noted my objection to this blatantly unconstitutional requirement enshrined in state law last summer when I refused to make an appointment to the Arkansas Ethics Commission based on the color of an appointee’s skin. Appointments to government boards and commissions should be based on one’s qualifications, not meeting racial quotas. With this injunction now in place, Arkansans of all races will be given fair and equal consideration for appointment.”
To read the court’s order, click here.
To download a PDF version 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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