Why the ruling freezing UC Berkeley’s enrollment was misguided and legally wrong

It’s imperative that a California trial court judge’s misguided and legally wrong decision limiting enrollment at UC Berkeley be set aside by the California Supreme Court or, failing that, the Legislature.

The judge’s ruling sets the university’s maximum enrollment at the 2020-21 level, which was exceptionally low due to COVID. If not reversed, the decision means at least 5,000 fewer students will be offered admission to Berkeley. This will be devastating for these students and for the university.

The judge was ruling on lawsuits filed by the community group Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The group objected to the campus’ planned construction at the Goldman School of Public Policy, which would provide new academic space as well as housing for as many as 225 faculty members, postdoctoral researchers and graduate students. It would hardly affect enrollment, adding only 30 new graduate students.

Although there was a separate ongoing action challenging enrollment levels, an Alameda County Superior Court judge summarily entered judgment in the litigation concerning the Goldman School. The court ordered the University of California’s regents to suspend further enrollment increases in 2022-23 and beyond.

The trial court’s ruling was wrong on many levels. The court had no jurisdiction in deciding the Goldman School case to impose limits on Berkeley’s student population; that was simply not at issue. CEQA is explicit that “any order ... shall include only those mandates which are necessary to achieve compliance with this division.”

Moreover, in a CEQA challenge, a court may not order relief unless it finds “that any determination, finding or decision of a public agency has been made without compliance with” the law. The trial court, though, did not find that the regents made any determination, finding or decision to increase enrollment without complying with CEQA in connection with the Goldman School project.

Beyond these legal errors, setting the enrollment limit at the 2020-21 level is particularly arbitrary and harmful. The practical effect of the trial court’s order is that Berkeley must enroll 3,050 fewer students next year. Based on the usual “yield” rates at Berkeley — the number of students who accept an offer of admission — a reduction of at least 5,100 undergraduate admission offers would be needed to reduce next year’s enrollment sufficiently.

The other UC campuses will not be able to absorb these students easily. To increase their enrollment to accommodate the shortfall at Berkeley, some campuses would have to go through an exhaustive CEQA analysis that cannot possibly be done in time for admissions this spring.

Indeed, the practical effect of the trial court ruling, if left undisturbed, is that any campus building project — even one that provides much-needed housing — can be used as a tool to interfere with public schools’ enrollment decisions simply by invoking CEQA. Management of school enrollment should not be transferred from appointed and elected school administrators to judges.

In 2020, when the California Court of Appeal for the first time held that CEQA potentially applied to enrollment decisions, it stressed that it did not impose an enrollment cap: “[O]ur decision in no way caps enrollment at the University of California or obstructs the regents’ authority.”

The harms of the trial court’s decision cannot be overstated for the students who would be denied admission or for the university, which will lose approximately $60 million in revenue, inevitably reducing financial aid and programs.

Last Monday, the university asked the California Supreme Court to step in and put the matter on hold. If the court does not do so, the California Legislature must act. At a time when lawmakers are mandating that UC campuses take more students, it makes no sense to interpret California law to restrict enrollment.