First Amendment Tangles with KKK (Again)

Dan Slater at the WSJ Law Blog posted on an interesting First Amendment case about a state trooper’s involvement with the KKK. The trooper was subsequently fired, and now he’s arguing for his job back:

In 2004, Robert Henderson, then a state trooper in Nebraska, joined an organization called the Knights Party after his wife left him for a hispanic man. The Knights Party is an affiliate of the Ku Klux Klan. In 2006, following a state patrol disciplinary hearing in which Henderson told the investigator he joined the Knights Party to vent his frustration, he was fired from the force. An arbitrator then overturned Henderson’s firing, saying that it violated his First Amednment rights. Nebraska’s Attorney General, John Bruning, then appealed that decision and won in a lower Nebraska State Court. Yesterday, Henderson and his lawyer, Vincent Valentino, appealed to Nebraska’s Supreme Court to have Henderson reinstated.

At the link, Slater delivers a great summary of the relevant law, courtesy of Stanford con law Professor Derek Shaffer.

State Trooper, Fired for Associating with KKK, Argues for Job Back [WSJ Law Blog]

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