Griffin: ‘The Biden-Harris Title IX rule breaks the law Congress has written and violates the Constitution’

LITTLE ROCK – Attorney General Tim Griffin today issued the following statement announcing that he and 19 other state attorneys general have filed an amicus brief in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in support of a Tennessee-led coalition’s lawsuit against the Biden-Harris administration’s Title IX rule:

“Congress enacted Title IX to protect and promote educational opportunities for women and girls. I am proud to have filed our successful lawsuit challenging the Biden-Harris administration’s election-year effort to go around Congress and allow men into women’s and girl’s locker rooms, restrooms, and showers. That is also why I am leading this coalition of states to bolster our fellow states’ efforts to halt this unlawful Title IX rule.

“The Biden-Harris Title IX rule breaks the law Congress has written and violates the Constitution.”

In June, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti secured a preliminary injunction against the implementation of the Biden-Harris Title IX rule for his state and the states of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, and West Virginia. Griffin’s amicus brief asks the Sixth Circuit to affirm the preliminary injunction and rule that the new attempt to rewrite Title IX is unlawful.

In July, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri issued a preliminary injunction in Arkansas v. U.S. Department of Education to stop the Biden-Harris administration’s new Title IX rule from being implemented in Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

To read the amicus brief filed by Griffin and the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming, click here.

For a printer-friendly 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 has served as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps for more than 28 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 lives in Little Rock with his wife, Elizabeth, a Camden native, and their three children.

###