INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The Indiana Supreme Court says the University of Notre Dame can keep campus police reports secret.
The ruling Wednesday came in a lawsuit filed by ESPN seeking records about alleged crimes by student-athletes from the campus police department. The court’s unanimous ruling says the private university’s police department isn’t a public agency that falls under the state open records law.
That decision reverses a lower court ruling that the Notre Dame police department should be subject to public access laws because it has legal authority from the state to make arrests and has jurisdiction beyond the university’s campus.
An ESPN attorney argued the abilities of university police to arrest and apprehend are “the core powers of the state.”
Notre Dame says it’s a private institution without government functions.
