[brief] Plaintiff’s NJLAD claims, again, were dismissed via Order of Judge [...] on August 7, 2020.  (Pa117-132).  (Plaintiff has not asserted in this appeal that that order was erroneous nor set out any argument that it should be reversed.)  As such, all that remained was the CEPA claim.  Plaintiff claims she engaged in “whistle blowing” by filing Complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity unit (“EEO”) on or about July 26, 2016.  (Pa133-136).  The EEO Complaint was investigated and closed on or about December 18, 2017.  The allegations were found to be unsubstantiated.  (Pa137-140).  This lawsuit was, in fact, filed before the EEO completed its investigation (Cf. Pa1-116 and 137-140).  During the time period when Plaintiff filed her EEO Complaint, she was assigned to the OPS (Pa1), having been promoted to Sergeant First Class (“SFC”) in March of 2014.  (Pa2).  In November of 2016, Plaintiff was transferred from OPS to the State Police Training Bureau.  (Pa163-164).  Plaintiff alleged this transfer was in “retaliation” for her filing the EEO Complaint.  Defendants each denied the same as set forth in the certifications provided in support of this motion.  (Pa155-170).  There was no dispute, and the record below clear, the transfer was made at the request of [...] for completely non retaliatory reasons.  (Pa164).  Specifically, he affirmed that the promotion had its genesis in the request of [...] to [...] for the names of three people under his command who could be transferred to the Training Bureau, and [...] concluded that he could afford to transfer one each from the three largest units under his command.  (Pa163-164).  Lt. Col. Shallop specifically requested individuals from the first two units, EEO and Executive Protection, which meant that [...] had to chose someone from OPS, and he believed Plaintiff was the “obvious choice. ” (Id.).  He stated the reasons for choosing Plaintiff, specifically:  7.  Plaintiff was the obvious choice to be transferred from OPS because she was a holdover from [...]’s administration as the de facto Administrative Officer (AO).  It was traditional in the State Police that when a Major took over a Bureau, he (or she) could choose their own Administrative Officer.  [...] had replaced [...] in or about August of 2016.  8.  When [...] replaced [...], Plaintiff continued in the AO position.  By transferring her to the Academy, I was able to open up the AO position so that [...] could exercise a major's normal prerogative of choosing his own AO.  On or about May 2, 2018, Plaintiff was promoted to Lieutenant.  (Pa 141).  While Plaintiff claims, without support, that had she remained in OPS and not been transferred her promotion to Lieutenant would have come earlier, that allegation is belied by the objective record.  The Lieutenant position in OPS to which she claims she would have been promoted was not filled until July 17, 2018, two months after she was promoted having been transferred to the State Police Training Bureau.  (Pa142).  Eight current or former members of the [...] were named as Defendants and each denied retaliating against Plaintiff.  (Pa155-170).  [...] acknowledges he initiated the transfer.  This was his prerogative and in no way retaliatory.  (Pa163-164).  The other individual Defendants played no role in the transfer.  (Pa155-170).  **Legal Argument**