To the editor:

Some of you may know that I filed a lawsuit against the Brown County School and the Brown County Health Department earlier this month in an effort to overturn the basketball policy that has prevented parents from attending home games in Nashville due to COVID-19 concerns. My lawsuit is now done and I lost. My entire case is publicly available, and if you have the interest, you can read all the documents and study it yourself by logging into mycase.IN.gov and entering case number 07C01-2101-PL-000005.

While the arguments in the case are lengthy, the critical issue came down to a few provisions in executive orders issued by Governor Eric J. Holcomb. The provision that I focused on addresses attendance restrictions at K-12 extracurricular activities (like basketball) and states that when a county has been designated red “attendance shall be limited to participants, support personnel and students’ parents, guardians, siblings and other minor children of a parent or guardian of students.”

The health department relied upon a different provision that states “Unless otherwise specified, nothing in this Executive Order prohibits a county, political subdivision, local government entity or school corporation from imposing more stringent requirements than this Executive Order.”

The court decided that the governor did not expressly prohibit the health department from further restricting attendance to exclude parents. Thus, the only way I could have won this lawsuit is if Governor Holcomb had added an additional sentence that essentially said, “The local health department is expressly precluded from mandating any further restrictions beyond those restrictions specifically listed here.”

Although I also presented a number of other arguments to the court, none of my other arguments were considered to be relevant by the court. For example, parents who have been attending basketball games know that there has not been a single away game where parents have been prevented from attending in those counties. Would it be surprising to learn that the COVID-19 data in those counties is similar to or worse than Brown County, and yet, those counties are not restricting parents from attending? What about the fact that players already live in the same households with the parents who want to attend the games; the players already practice against each other; and the two teams will already be playing against each other whether the parents attend or not? It is hard to see how this attendance restriction will have any measurable impact on the spread of COVID-19.

The broader significance of this court decision is that it has elevated one person in Brown County to a position of such immense power that he now has almost unbridled authority to control almost any activity that occurs in Brown County. That one person is the head of the Brown County Health Department, Dr. Oestrike, who happens to be spending the winter in Florida while we remain here in Brown County dealing with his restrictions on us.

It is hard to imagine what activities in Brown County the health department would be prevented from restricting in its effort to eradicate COVID-19, because there is no explicit language anywhere in Executive Order 20-50 that affirmatively prohibits interference by the health department. Let’s walk through some examples.

Section 4 gives a long list of businesses and entities that operate in Indiana and says that they are allowed to be open and operate. But noticeably, there is no explicit prohibition against the health department limiting the operation of any of those businesses and entities. Section 6 specifically deals with restaurants. Section 7.a. deals with religious services. Section 7.b. deals with private gatherings in people’s homes. Section 8 deals with schools.

Like the provision concerning high school basketball games that I argued, none of these provisions expressly prohibits the health department from completely shutting them down, which the court would require before limiting the health department’s authority. In view of that level of power, it seems that there is no one in Brown County more powerful than the current head of the Brown County Health Department.

So why did the most powerful person in Brown County choose to target parents who want to attend their children’s high school sports events instead of going after other ongoing activity in Brown County that could potentially spread COVID-19? One reason is that it’s likely that Dr. Oestrike didn’t even realize how powerful he actually is prior to the court’s decision. But another reason is probably that high school sports events and parents are a soft target. Imagine the blowback that would occur if the health department tried to shut down commercial businesses. The health department wouldn’t just have one unexpected lawsuit on its hands that was filed by a sole parent doing it on his own time. Instead, the health department would have lawsuit after lawsuit litigated by hired attorneys. And think of the public outrage if the health department enlisted the sheriff to monitor the driveways of private homes for unauthorized guests.

Comparatively speaking, it seems that high school sports are just not that important. And parental rights? It makes one wonder if that is even a real thing anymore in the age of COVID-19.

What can parents do who disagree with all of this? You can do what I am doing now: Write a letter to the editor. Write a letter to the school board. Write a letter to the county commissioners. Write a letter to the health department.

Sincerely,

Rich Stanley, Brown County

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