California’s Supreme Court has ordered the University of California, Berkeley to freeze its undergraduate enrollment at 2020-21 levels, denying its petition against a lower court ruling.
That means the university will have to accept at least 3,000 fewer students than planned for the upcoming academic year.
Thursday’s decision is the result of a legal battle with a resident’s group called Save Berkeley Neighborhoods. The group sued the university under the California Environmental Quality Act in 2018 for failing to address the effect of increased student enrollment on housing, homelessness, traffic and noise.
The ruling also blocks the construction of about 150 apartments for faculty.