NIMBYS deny thousands of students an educational opportunity to protect their petty financial and aesthetic interests
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I would call this NIMBY self-parody if the material consequences weren’t so dire:
The University of California at Berkeley expects to cut the number of admission offers it had planned to make this spring and ask some incoming students to delay their arrival to campus, following a state Supreme Court decision Thursday that leaves in place a lower court’s order to cap student enrollment.
The California Supreme Court, on a 4-to-2 vote, denied UC-Berkeley’s appeal for a stay of the enrollment cap that a judge had imposed in August as the result of a lawsuit alleging that the university’s growth puts unacceptable strain on housing and other resources in local neighborhoods. Some estimates cited in court documents suggested the cap could reduce the size of the entering class by nearly a third. Under that scenario, there could be about 3,050 fewer incoming students at UC-Berkeley in the fall compared with the previous year.
The decision was a setback for Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who had supported the university’s appeal. “This is against everything we stand for — new pathways to success, attracting tomorrow’s leaders, making college more affordable,” Newsom’s office said in a tweet. “UC’s incoming freshman class is the most diverse ever but now thousands of dreams will be dashed to keep a failing status quo.”
Our nation’s judiciary continues to not exactly cover itself in glory, either:
The two dissenters on the state high court who sided with Newsom and the university were Justices Goodwin H. Liu and Joshua P. Groban. Those in the majority were Chief Justice Tani Gorre Cantil-Sakauye and Justices Carol A. Corrigan, Leondra R. Kruger and Martin J. Jenkins. The majority did not issue a published opinion. The lawsuit, filed by a group called Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods, remains pending in a state appellate court.
I personally believe the young people being denied a chance to attend the state’s flagship public university deserve an explanation for why the state’s top court is allowing NIMBYs to use a law ostensibly protecting the environment to screw them over, even though literally involved knows that the lawsuit has absolutely nothing to do with the environment. Preferably hand-written to each individual student.
Needless to say, CEQA needs to be seriously reformed to prevent this kind of abuse. It represents the kind of “local control” the governor who signed it loved.
…nom de clavier in comments:
CEQA, by frustrating dense development in the state with the mildest weather and one of the cleanest energy grids, has almost certainly been a huge net negative for the environment. It’s an absolute disgrace, and the sooner it’s repealed (and replaced with something that actually protects the environment without strangling construction) the better.
…and, yes, people who buy houses in the center of college towns and complain about how there are too many college students around and the law should do something about it are some of the most bizarre people in the world. Your windfall profits give you many other options if you don’t like it!
people who move to university towns and then complain about the existence of students are completely bizarre to me https://t.co/A7tIN5Pc27— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) March 4, 2022