Don’t Go Irish

As March Madness rapidly approaches, I will of course be rooting for the Notre Dame men’s basketball team to go deep in the tournament.  They have a tough draw starting right off the bat, but they are a veteran team that has a chance to make a decent run.  But please, don’t rely on anything I have to say on the NCAA tournament.  I suspect I will once again lose badly in my office bracket, and wonder again why I don’t just burn a five dollar bill and get it over with quicker.   

But I am on this one and only occasion, rooting against Notre Dame in another court – specifically the Indiana Supreme Court.  The University recently lost an appeal in a public records case in which ESPN was seeking records from the Notre Dame Police Force.  Notre Dame argued that as a private institution, it was not subject to the Indiana Public Records Act, despite the fact that its police force was empowered under Indiana law to make arrests and use deadly force.  ESPN argued that cops are cops and police records should be public.  An Indiana appellate court sided with ESPN.  

Notre Dame says it plans to appeal the ruling to the Indiana Supreme Court.  That may not be such a great idea.  If it looks due east, it will see that the Ohio Supreme Court, in an identical case from 2015, ruled that records of police forces maintained by private universities are indeed public.  This seems like a common sense position.  I hope the Indiana Supreme Court hands the Irish one more loss.  Which would mean a victory for the public interest.