But I’ll gladly toss some money his way if he needs it to cover legal costs.
An Army reservist employed at the University of Washington has filed suit against the institution, asserting in court papers that he has been harassed and discriminated against for serving in Iraq.
Employed by UW as an electrician since 1992, Army Reserve Lt. Col. James Lukehart had risen in the ranks of the university’s facilities department and was working as a maintenance manager when he was ordered to deploy to Iraq in June 2006.
Before he went overseas, a group of his coworkers had told him he would be “engaging in immoral, if not illegal, action” if he went to Iraq as ordered, Lukehart asserts in court documents. Still, the reservist went to war less than three weeks after receiving notice that he’d be deployed.
According to military news reports, Lukehart served as an executive officer in an engineering brigade stationed at Ballad Air Base, 70 miles north of Baghdad. Among Lukehart’s duties while deployed, according to an August 2007 edition of the Camp Anaconda Times, was the construction of a water-treatment plant in rural Iraq.
Hoping to return to work in September 2007, Lukehart found that his manager had launched an investigation into allegations of misconduct made against him while serving overseas, according to court papers.
Through his attorney, Sidney Strong, Lukehart alleges that the university gave him no notice that he was under investigation. Confronted by Lukehart, the university even declined to say what the allegations had been made.
The university “refused to provide him with any statement of the charges made against him, instead insisting that (Lukehart) had no need to know either the allegations made against him or the source of those allegations,” Strong said in court documents filed earlier this month in King County Superior Court.
If anyone hears something, please send the info my way so I can post it.
UPDATE: Forgotten link added.
Where did you source this from?
It’s in the PI today.