UC Berkeley ordered to freeze enrollment for incoming class

The University of California, Berkeley was ordered by the state Supreme Court on Thursday to freeze its undergraduate enrollment at 2020-21 levels, meaning it will have to accept at least 3,000 fewer students than planned for in the upcoming academic year. “We believe this effort is preferable to drastically reducing the number of offers of admissions and denying so many students a Berkeley education.” UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof said the university expects to present its case before the Court of Appeals this summer. Gavin Newsom to file a friend of the court brief asking the California Supreme Court to block the enrollment cap, saying in a statement that a lawsuit should not “get in the way of the education and dreams of thousands of students who are our future leaders and innovators.” Thursday’s decision leaves intact the a lower court’s order and rejects the university’s request to lift the enrollment cap while it appeals the original lawsuit by the neighborhood group at the Court of Appeals. Writing in dissent of Thursday’s 4-2 decision, Associate Justice Goodwin Liu lamented that roughly 3,050 students could lose the opportunity to attend one of the top universities in the country because of “an environmental lawsuit.” He urged the university to renew its request for a stay at the Court of Appeals and urged the two sides to engage in negotiations or mediation to solve the dispute quickly.