The Indiana Supreme Court has held that private university police officers appointed pursuant to Indiana Code section 21-17-5-2 are state actors for constitutional purposes. In Finger v. State, 799 N.E.2d 528 (Ind. 2003), the court addressed the question as it related to Fourth Amendment limits on the conduct of a Butler University police officer. Stating that "[a] private entity is deemed a state actor when the state delegates to it a traditionally public function[,]" id. at 532, the court held that the officer was "a state actor subject to [ ] Fourth Amendment restrictions on searches and seizures," id., owing to the State's conferral of "general police powers" on private university police. Id. (quoting Ind. Code §§ 20-12-3.5-1(1) and -2 (1998) (predecessors to Ind. Code § 21-17-5-2)).
Thus, when Notre Dame police officers exercise the authority they are granted under Indiana Code section 21-17-5-4, they act under color of state law just like any other law enforcement officer in the State. Id. That these officers are appointed, employed, and paid by private universities did not factor into the Finger court's state-actor analysis in any fashion. See id. Rather, their status as state actors was entirely dependent on their exercise of state-delegated police powers. Id.; see also Evans v. Newton, 382 U.S. 296, 299 (1966) ("[W]hen private individuals or groups are endowed by the state with powers or functions governmental in nature, they become agencies or instrumentalities of the state. . . .").
