You now have access to police records of student athletes
Notre Dame loses major court case to ESPN
The Indiana Appeals Court has ruled in favor of ESPN over Notre Dame in the police records lawsuit after ESPN sued Notre Dame for not allowing the public access to police records of student athletes.
The ruling said: “It would not be appropriate for the Police Department, having availed itself of its statutory right to exercise these public functions, to then be able to circumvent public records requirements to which all other entities exercising these same functions are required to adhere.”
The 2012 Notre Dame football team. There is no suggestion any of the players pictured have police records
Basically, the court ruled that even though NDSP is a private entity, it still performs public services and is therefore still considered public and must answer to state law.
This decision directly contradicts the HB1022 bill passed by the Indiana Senate last week, which was in part written by Notre Dame and other private universities in Indiana, and would allow all private universities in Indiana to withhold certain investigatory records from the public domain.
Because of this, today’s decision may have limited impact on whether or not NDSP must share the records of students.
The bill is set to be signed into action by the governor in July.