[HN Gopher] Judge freezes UC Berkeley's student enrollment at 20...
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Judge freezes UC Berkeley's student enrollment at 2020-21 levels
Author : elsewhen
Score : 33 points
Date : 2021-08-25 17:07 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.berkeleyside.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.berkeleyside.org)
| outside1234 wrote:
| Not sure why a Judge gets to decide this but it makes sense.
|
| Why are we expanding Berkeley - in a super expensive area for
| students instead of expanding in Merced (or even Davis) - where
| is much less expensive.
| kjksf wrote:
| Because capitalism and private property and free will.
|
| Berkley doesn't get to tell you to live in a cheaper
| appartement.
|
| In return, you don't get to tell Berkley where they can open a
| new campus.
|
| I get that in this case the Judge decided to stop the
| expansion.
|
| I'm just responding to "Why are we expanding Berkeley" bit.
|
| There's no "we" here. There's only UC Berkley and they get to
| decide how to conduct business.
| frostburg wrote:
| Berkeley is a public university.
| TedShiller wrote:
| Just because something is public doesn't mean it has to be
| of poor quality.
| [deleted]
| melony wrote:
| Because it is unfair to gatekeep the most reputable school in
| the UC system while California's population is growing?
| Domenic_S wrote:
| Why's that?
| aesh2Xa1 wrote:
| You're asking, so, per OP and with no more data (which you
| did not provide):
|
| as population increases, more will seek a desirable good --
| UC Berkeley education.
|
| The data you didn't provide might be, for example, a school
| which could suitably meet the increased demand.
| toast0 wrote:
| outside1234 suggested (UC) Merced or (UC) Davis as
| schools more suited to expansion than Berkeley.
| Ostensibly, all UCs are high quality education
| destinations. I don't know that Merced has earned
| distinction yet, but UC Davis is distinguished and
| interested parties could discuss the relative level of
| distinguishment.
| TedShiller wrote:
| Exactly. Quality of education has gone down. Let's make it
| smaller again (not just freeze).
| KingMachiavelli wrote:
| A school has existed since 1868 yet people move near it and think
| they should have the final say on what the school does. Can the
| school counter sue Save Berkeley's Neighborhood the using the
| CEQA since new residents have an impact on the environment,
| noise, housing and displacement?
|
| Not that I disagree, they added nearly 7x the students they
| planned to add due to reduced state funding so perhaps revisiting
| their plans is a good thing. Maybe they'll add more than just 150
| faculty housing units.
|
| I think overall this just shows the uncertainty in higher
| education. Top tier schools can attract a practically limitless
| supply of students yet we can only add so many spots due to space
| constrains. Meanwhile there are dozens to hundreds of schools
| throughout the country that are closing due to declining
| enrollment (many deserved it since many of these schools were
| simply former agricultural schools, etc. that re-branded as
| universities to attract more students). Maybe instead of trying
| to squeeze every ounce of space on existing locations, these
| schools should open satellite schools throughout the country?
| TedShiller wrote:
| This is a positive for Berkeley. Having had many friends graduate
| from there over the last 20 years, they all said it was massively
| overcrowded. People standing in lecture halls that were designed
| for half the students. TAs being overwhelmed, not able to give
| attention.
|
| I would even go further and reduce the population over time
| rather than just freezing it. Let Berkeley be the place it once
| was.
| twirlock wrote:
| ITT we express confusion that stooges in academia don't outrank
| judges and aren't above laws.
| systemBuilder wrote:
| If California could freeze all population at 2020-2021 levels, it
| would do it in a heartbeat! It's a racist white state (that
| played ZERO Motown in the 70's - Beach Boys only baby!) rigged to
| exploit immigrants as much as possible with migrant farm worker
| programs, migrant tech worker programs called H1B (75% of which
| work in CA) tax exploitation named prop13 (immigrant homebuyers
| pay ALL the property taxes whereas longtime white landowners pay
| Nothing!) and California invented the concept of a gold rush
| where the locals selling picks and shovels get rich while the
| immigrant prospectors get screwed - invented in 1848 but
| currently in progress with the internet boom of 1998-2021!
| jollybean wrote:
| It's really interesting that this is a judicial rather than a
| civic ruling, on what material basis can judges really make such
| a vague ruling? What are the 'measures' that the UC would have to
| meet if there are no specific codes or city bylaws they are not
| breaking ... how is this a matter for the judiciary? Can someone
| comment? Dragon?
| Jtsummers wrote:
| The judge didn't come up with this ruling out of nowhere,
| someone had to file suit against UC Berkeley.
| Fomite wrote:
| When you want to stop someone from doing something because you
| think it breaks the law, you file an injunction. That makes it
| a judicial thing.
|
| This is especially true for state agencies (like the UC system)
| - you basically have to sue them.
| nomel wrote:
| This is a great question for us non-lawyers. Why is it being
| downvoted? I'm confused about the "how" rather than "what" or
| "why". I see what happened, and why the the judge made the
| decision, but how can a judge tell a business where they can be
| and how many they service, if there's nothing illegal going on?
| Public nuisance laws, or something similar?
| Jtsummers wrote:
| > This is a great question for us non-lawyers.
|
| How is it a great question?
|
| In the US when two parties have a disagreement they can
| either discuss amongst themselves and resolve it, take it to
| a mediator to resolve it, or take it to the courts. In this
| instance, the courts became involved because UC Berkeley
| wasn't going to stop the expansion and the people and city
| felt that they had a case. Apparently the judge agreed with
| them. Like I said in my other comment, someone had to file a
| suit. The judge didn't intervene just because they were
| bored, someone filed suit.
|
| > how can a judge tell a business where they can be and how
| many they service, if there's nothing illegal going on?
|
| Read the article. Berkeley made initial expansion plans for
| around 1600 students by 2020, but exceeded 11k instead. This
| contradicted the initial agreement and plans with the city so
| the suit was filed. Also, UC Berkeley is _not_ a business, it
| 's a public state institution.
| webmaven wrote:
| _> how can a judge tell a business where they can be and how
| many they service?_
|
| UC Berkeley is a state agency, not a business.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I see what happened, and why the the judge made the
| decision, but how can a judge tell a business where they can
| be and how many they service
|
| Essentially, A judge found that the UC Berkeley campus and
| the UC Board of Regents violated the California Environmental
| Quality Act by failing to consider relevant factors in their
| handling environmental impact statements regarding UC
| Berkeley expansion, and directed the Regents and campus to
| nullify their illegal actions and halt further expansion
| until such expansion was lawfully approved.
|
| > if there's nothing illegal going on?
|
| The "if there's nothing illegal going on" premise is directly
| contrary to the ruling. The campus and Regents actions
| regarding the required environmental impact reports related
| to the expansion were found to be illegal, that's the whole
| basis for the decision.
| elliekelly wrote:
| The ruling is that Berkeley _did_ break the law. Or, at least,
| they didn't follow it.
|
| California has an environmental law called the California
| Environmental Quality Act[1] or CEQA. It sets forth a process
| that all state and local government entities (including state
| universities) must follow when undertaking new projects. My
| very superficial legal understanding of the CEQA is that it's
| seriously complex. I'm on mobile so I'm having a hard time
| finding the document but to give you an idea of the complexity
| the state puts out an annual CEQA handbook with all the rules
| and guidance and recent cases and it's something like 400 pages
| long. (Edit: Here's a link to the PDF[2] of the 2021 Handbook.)
|
| The gist of it is a requirement that, prior to undertaking a
| new project, the entity has to complete an environmental
| assessment of how the proposed project will impact things like
| water use, pollution, noise, etc. Then they need to publish the
| report, get comment from the public, and, in certain instances,
| adjust the project plan to minimize the impact.
|
| CEQA also, somewhat controversially, allows for a private right
| of civil action. So when a state or local government entity in
| California doesn't comply with CEQA then a person who is or may
| be negatively impacted by the failure to comply can file a
| civil suit and that's what happened here.
|
| The reason the private right of action is controversial is
| because it's sometimes (often?) used as pretext to get a court-
| order to prevent a project by people or groups who aren't at
| all concerned for the environment but have some other motive.
| And, because the law is incredibly complex, it turns out it's
| not a bad legal strategy for NIMBYs. (Edit: I just want to
| clarify that I don't mean to imply the group who filed this
| suit is NIMBYs or environmental activists. I have zero idea as
| to their motives.)
|
| Anyway, this case wound up on this judge's docket because a
| local group brought suit under CEQA alleging the University
| didn't follow all of the requirements and the judge agreed. So
| he sent them back to do the process again. And in the meantime,
| he froze enrollment.
|
| (Again, I have a very superficial understanding of how it works
| so take everything I've said with a grain of salt. In practice
| it's _far_ more complex than what I've described.)
|
| [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Environmental_Qua
| ...
|
| [2]https://www.califaep.org/docs/CEQA_Handbook_2021.pdf
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(page generated 2021-08-25 23:01 UTC)