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Thursday, December 16, 2010

Ind. Law - "Notre Dame's inquiry of alleged sex attack upsets parents of girl who accused athlete, killed herself"

The ILB has had earlier entries on this story. The most recent was Nov. 24, 2010.

Today, Chicago Tribune reporters Stacy St. Clair and Todd Lighty have a very long story in the South Bend Tribune about the inquiry. Here are a few quotes:

The parents of a Northbrook teenager who killed herself a week after accusing a University of Notre Dame football player of sexually attacking her say they feel betrayed by the school they love and that several generations of their family have attended.

Speaking publicly for the first time since their daughter's Sept. 10 death, Tom and Mary Seeberg suggest that the campus police conducted a superficial investigation of their daughter's allegations. They question why, according to a timeline they received from the university, it took police two weeks to interview the player — even after Elizabeth "Lizzy" Seeberg, 19, gave detailed statements and reported receiving a text message warning her about "messing with" the storied football program.

Concerned that the university's handling of reported sex crimes poses a public safety threat to women at Notre Dame and neighboring St. Mary's College, where their daughter was a freshman, the Seebergs decided to break their three-month silence. They say Notre Dame, a university named after the Virgin Mary, should be a leader in handling alleged crimes against women. * * *

The parents say their disappointment intensified recently when the university indicated it may not give them access to records related to their daughter's accusations. University officials also signaled they believe the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act prevents them from sharing information about any internal disciplinary proceeding, though their daughter would be entitled to those details if she were alive. * * *

Notre Dame authorities have refused to publicly discuss what happened and how they handled Lizzy Seeberg's complaint.

In addition, on Dec. 10th the Indianapolis Star published a letter from Frank D. LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Va. The headline: "Still in the dark at Notre Dame." Some quotes:
The tragic events leading up to Lizzy Seeberg's death are a matter of substantial public concern -- and had they happened anywhere other than the campus of a private college, the public would know far more. * * *

Notre Dame campus police have taken charge of investigating both the sexual assault allegation and Seeberg's death. But they have declined to release the detailed incident reports that police normally generate, containing the investigating officers' narrative description of their observations.

Incident reports are crucial to complete and accurate police reporting, and journalists routinely are able to review them at other police departments under the Indiana Access to Public Records Act. But the Notre Dame Security Police Department claims it is exempt from the act because Notre Dame is a private institution and not a government agency.

That explanation is far too simplistic. Notre Dame police may get their paychecks from a private entity, but in every other way they are state officials, exercising state power delegated to them by state law. * * *

Indiana state law ... grants police officers at private colleges "general police powers, including the power to arrest" and confers "the same common law and statutory powers, privileges and immunities as sheriffs and constables."

Based on these state-delegated powers, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled in 2003 that officers at private universities must abide by the same Fourth Amendment search-and-seizure constraints that apply to all other "state actors."

There is precedent for subjecting the records of private college police to public scrutiny. In 2008, Connecticut's Freedom of Information Commission ruled that the Yale University police department -- which is legally indistinguishable from Notre Dame's -- must disclose its incident reports just like any other law enforcement agency.

Virtually every state has declared police incident reports to be open records, because openness is essential to holding the justice system accountable and alerting the public to dangers. Had Seeberg alleged she was attacked at an off-campus apartment instead of a St. Mary's dorm, police unquestionably would have been obligated to promptly disclose how they handled the complaint.

There is no good reason that crimes committed at private colleges should be uniquely cloaked in secrecy.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 16, 2010 09:59 AM
Posted to Indiana Law