A federal appeals court has allowed a Tennessee highway patrolman to sue the state for being demoted on partisan grounds. Robert Eckerman claims he was busted down to sergeant from lieutenant because he is a Republican working in a Democratic administration. He says his support of GOP candidates with bumper stickers and yard signs and attendance at rallies angered his Democratic superiors.

 

Eckerman, who began working for the Tennessee Highway Patrol in 1984, first filed a federal discrimination complaint over his political affiliation in May 2006, six months before he was demoted. He then filed his lawsuit in 2007, after the Tennessee Department of Safety punished him for allegedly spreading malicious rumors about another officer in an Internal Affairs investigation. Eckerman’s demotion was reversed by a civil service commission after he spent 18 months as a sergeant. He is currently the head of the Tennessee Highway Patrol’s concealed firearms permit program.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Court Revives Political Discrimination Lawsuit (by Liz Potocsnak, Courthouse News Service)

Appeals Court Keeps Tennessee Trooper's Discrimination Suit Alive (by Brian Hass, The Tennessean)

Robert Eckerman v. Tennessee Department of Safety (Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals) (pdf)