A lawsuit filed in Franklin County accuses Kentucky State Police of discriminating against a post commander because she’s a woman with children.
Captain Jennifer Sandlin, a Kentucky State Police Post Commander in Hazard, alleges that the agency passed over her for multiple promotions and treated her differently based on the fact she’s a woman and has children, according to the lawsuit.
In hand-written journal pages filed in the case, Sandlin writes that she was up for a promotion to the rank of major on multiple occasions, but was passed over each time in favor of a man.
Also filed with the lawsuit was a screengrab of an alleged email lining out KSP response to the 2022 floods in Eastern Kentucky. The alleged email lists trooper shifts for two phases of flood response, one from August 1 to 6, and the second from August 7 to 11.
“Arrangements for females are for Phase 2 only,” the alleged email states.
Sandlin also wrote that when she graduated from the academy and was given her login information, her password had been set to “brEast6ed.”
Sandlin is currently the highest ranking woman at the agency, and is the only post commander who is a woman, according to the agency’s website. There are no women listed as serving on the agency’s command staff.
When Sandlin was pregnant in 2005, a commander told her to bring in a verification of the pregnancy, saying that “some women may fake a pregnancy to get off the road and then just say they miscarried,” according to her journal pages.
While being considered for one promotion, Sandlin wrote that a senior KSP official told her that the job would require a lot of time in Frankfort, and that she should discuss it with her husband. She wrote that she felt she had to convince the senior official that she could work in Frankfort by saying that her husband was retired and that her oldest child could drive.
Sandlin was ultimately passed over for that promotion. The senior official told her that he didn’t think she could spend the required amount of time in Frankfort despite recognizing that she said she would, according to the journal.
On Wednesday, Kentucky State Police culture was brought into question duringan unrelated federal sentencing in which a prosecutor said the agency was an “old boy’s club.”
In a court-filed response to some of the allegations in Sandlin’s lawsuit, KSP wrote that there were other, more qualified candidates in some of the promotions Sandlin didn’t get. They also wrote that Sandlin declined two promotion offers, saying that she wanted to stay close to home and didn’t want to move her family.
Sandlin’s attorney, Thomas Clay, disputes the claim that she turned down promotion offers because she didn’t want to be away from her family.
KSP spokesman Capt. Paul Blanton released the following statement when asked about the culture at the agency and the allegations in the lawsuit.
“KSP does not discriminate based on gender, age, race, sex or religion and follows the promotion guidelines set by the agency’s policies and procedures. Due to pending litigation, KSP cannot comment further.”
