LITTLE ROCK – Arkansas Attorney General Rutledge leads a 12-multistate amicus brief defending Miss United States of America's right to produce a pageant that expresses its view of women's empowerment. The brief seeks to uphold the pageant’s First Amendment right to require that contestants be biological females against a claim brought by an “openly transgender” individual.
“It’s simply not right that women have fought for decades to have equal opportunities and now women are being forced to compete against biological men in exclusively female activities,” said Arkansas Attorney General Rutledge. “Pageants that promote female empowerment are a constitutional right and should be exclusively for women.”
Attorney General Rutledge has been a fierce advocate for women’s rights in Arkansas by ensuring that female athletes in Arkansas have equal opportunity to compete in exclusively female sports. Her leadership in the crafting and passage of the Gender Integrity Reinforcement Legislation for Sports (GIRLS) Act is just the most recent example of her protecting Arkansas’s young women.
In addition to Rutledge’s leadership on the brief it was signed on to by attorneys general from Alabama, Arizona, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas.
About Attorney General Leslie Rutledge
Leslie Carol Rutledge is the 56th Attorney General of Arkansas. Elected on November 4, 2014, and sworn in on January 13, 2015, she is the first woman and first Republican in Arkansas history to be elected as Attorney General. She was resoundingly re-elected on November 6, 2018. Since taking office, she has significantly increased the number of arrests and convictions against online predators who exploit children and con artists who steal taxpayer money through Social Security Disability and Medicaid fraud. Further, she has held Rutledge Roundtable meetings and Mobile Office hours in every county of the State each year, and launched a Military and Veterans Initiative. She has led efforts to roll back government regulations that hurt job creators, fight the opioid epidemic, teach internet safety, combat domestic violence and make the office the top law firm for Arkansans. Rutledge serves on committees for Consumer Protection, Criminal Law and Veterans Affairs for the National Association of Attorneys General. She also served as the former Chairwoman of the Republican Attorneys General Association.
A native of Batesville, she is a graduate of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law. Rutledge clerked for the Arkansas Court of Appeals, was Deputy Counsel for former Governor Mike Huckabee, served as a Deputy Prosecuting Attorney in Lonoke County and was an Attorney at the Department of Human Services before serving as Counsel at the Republican National Committee. Rutledge and her husband, Boyce, have one daughter. The family has a home in Pulaski County and a farm in Crittenden County.