Griffin: ‘I will vigorously enforce Arkansas’s law and ensure that taxpayers aren’t required to pay for anti-Israel and anti-Israeli discrimination’

LITTLE ROCK – Following the United States Supreme Court’s decision earlier today declining to review an en banc decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upholding Arkansas’s law prohibiting national origin discrimination, Attorney General Tim Griffin issued the following statement:

“Today, the United States Supreme Court declined to review an Eighth Circuit decision upholding Arkansas’s law prohibiting state contractors from discriminating against Israel and Israelis. As the Eighth Circuit correctly concluded, the First Amendment does not protect refusals to deal with someone simply because of their nationality. As Arkansas’s Attorney General, I will vigorously enforce Arkansas’s law and ensure that taxpayers aren’t required to pay for anti-Israel and anti-Israeli discrimination.”

About Attorney General Tim Griffin

Tim Griffin was elected Attorney General of Arkansas on November 8, 2022. He was elected Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas on November 4, 2014, and was re-elected for his second four-year term on November 6, 2018. From 2011-2015, Griffin served as the 24th Representative of Arkansas’s Second Congressional District. For the 113th Congress, he was a member of the House Committee on Ways and Means while also serving as a Deputy Whip for the Majority. In the 112th Congress, he served as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the House Committee on the Judiciary.

Griffin is a graduate of Magnolia High School, Hendrix College in Conway and Tulane Law School in New Orleans. He also attended graduate school at Oxford University. Griffin has served as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve, Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps, for over 25 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 Staff Judge Advocate (SJA) for the 81st Readiness Division at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Prior to his current post, Griffin served as the Commander of the 134th Legal Operations Detachment (LOD) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and a senior legislative advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness at the Pentagon. Colonel Griffin holds a master’s degree in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. He 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. Griffin lives in Little Rock with his wife, Elizabeth, a Camden native, and their three children.

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