The More the Merrier - Part 5 Wednesday, August 25, 2021
From Berkeleyside: Judge freezes UC Berkeley’s student enrollment at 2020-21 levels
An Alameda County judge ruled that campus must study the impacts of its growth before it expands any further. By Frances Dinkelspiel, Aug. 24, 2021
An Alameda County judge has ordered UC Berkeley to freeze its enrollment at 2020-21 levels going forward until the university redoes a supplemental environmental impact report (SEIR) for a complex on Hearst Avenue that includes housing and a new academic building for the Goldman School of Public Policy. The freeze will take effect in 2022-23. The order to freeze enrollment comes a little more than a month after Judge Brad Seligman ruled that UC Berkeley abused its discretion when it failed to study the impacts of increasing its enrollment by 33.7%, or 11,285 students, from 2005 to 2020. That was just one of the deficiencies in the supplemental environmental impact report for what is called the Upper Hearst Project, the judge ruled. Seligman also ordered the UC Board of Regents to void its 2018 approval of the Upper Hearst project and to decertify the supplemental environmental impact report. Cal must redo the SEIR to address certain issues, including how student enrollment increases have affected noise, housing and displacement in Berkeley, the judge ruled. The ruling is not only a victory for neighbors upset with UC Berkeley’s growth and its mitigation measures, but for other communities in California struggling to deal with UC campus impacts, said Phil Bokovoy, the president of Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods, which filed the original lawsuit. “This is how UC is behaving in lots of different places — forcing its impact on communities and not doing anything about it,” said Bokovoy. “It’s the first time a judge has said UC cannot continue to grow and has frozen its enrollment.” Dan Mogulof, a UC Berkeley spokesman, said Cal will move quickly to address the judge’s concerns so it can continue to add students. “We are optimistic that we can file 208
UCLA Faculty Association Blog: 3rd Quarter 2021
