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The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision that forced the University of California, Berkeley to freeze its admissions at 2020-21 levels.
Students walk through Sather Gate on the UC Berkeley campus. The University of California will reexamine security and safety policies in the wake of the shooting massacre at Virginia Tech that left 33 people dead, according to Robert Dynes, President of the University of California. The photo was taken by Justin Sullivan.
The decision means the university must cut its incoming student capacity by one-third, equivalent to about 3,000 slots, which meant the school had to deny 5,100 offers of admission. The Chronicle was told by UC Berkeley that the ruling will cost the school millions of dollars.
The Save Berkeley's Neighborhoods lawsuit was brought by neighbors of the Berkeley campus, who believe the university did not plan for a larger student body.
The order forced UC Berkeley to cap the number of students it could enroll at 42,000.
The school's neighbors objected to the construction of two new buildings on the campus that would have been used as classrooms and housing for professors, which the school argued would negatively impact the area.
The school is appealing the Supreme Court ruling.
Save Berkeley's Neighborhoods argued in the suit that UC Berkeley did not factor in the effect a larger student body and construction of the new buildings would have on the city's public safety services. According to the suit, these oversights violated the state's Environmental Equality Act, which requires public universities to mitigate the environmental impacts of their growth and development. The president of the group told the Chronicle its goal is to force the school to make an adequate analysis. The university enrolls just over 33,000 students, which is over 7,000 more than it projected. The school's lawyers told the court last month that the limit would have a catastrophic impact on UC Berkeley's ability to admit low-income, under-represented students. The school's neighbors filed a petition against the school's increased capacity.
The California Supreme Court decided to stay the lower court's decision.
Thousands of students who would have been admitted were sent letters by the school apologizing and asking them to continue considering the school after the Court of Appeal upheld the lower court's order.
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