On Friday, the Nebraska Supreme Court upheld a ruling allowing the firing of a State Patrol trooper who is connected to the Ku Klux Klan.
Justice John Gerrard wrote that Robert Henderson, a trooper for 18 years, voluntarily associated with an organization that uses violence and terror to oppose the state’s founding principles of equality and tolerance.
Gerrard noted that the state’s admission to the Union in 1867 was dependent on a “fundamental public policy” that Nebraska would adhere to the principle that “laws should be enforced without regard to race.”
Justice Kenneth Stephan wrote a dissenting opinion. Stephan said Henderson had kept his beliefs well hidden while on the job and there was no evidence those beliefs interfered with his impartial enforcement of the law.
