Assemblymember Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, explained what’s in his bill AB 1947, and how it could be a game changer for law enforcement when it comes to identifying hate crimes.

UC Berkeley Admissions Restored Under Senate Bill 118

California legislators acted with unusual speed this week to protect UC Berkeley from the consequences of a court ruling governing the number of students it could admit. Senate Bill 118, which was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday, exempts all state universities and colleges from certain portions of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which had been invoked by a local group suing UC Berkeley.

Assemblymember Phil Ting discusses SB 118 with ABC 7's Kristen Sze, allowing UC Berkeley & other higher ed institutions to grow enrollment, while also adhering to environmental protections. Watch here.

California legislators are fast-tracking a rescue effort to help UC Berkeley avoid slashing its in-person fall class by more than 2,600 students to meet a court-ordered enrollment freeze, just as the university prepares to release admission decisions this month.

Under legislation introduced Friday, the state’s public colleges and universities would be given 18 months to complete any court-ordered environmental review before being subject to a mandatory reduction or freeze in campus population.

Scrambling to short-circuit a court-ordered enrollment freeze at the University of California, Berkeley, state legislators on Friday unveiled a proposed change to a landmark environmental law that would let the university admit students at its previously planned level despite a lawsuit charging that its growth is polluting the city.

The California Supreme Court on Thursday declined to lift an enrollment cap on UC Berkeley, forcing one of the nation’s most popular campuses to scramble for ways to avoid what it initially feared could be cuts as large as one-third of its incoming fall class, or 3,050 seats, just weeks before it was set to release admission decisions.

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.

State lawmakers have revived an effort to allow San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland to use cameras to enforce excessive speeding amid the region’s surge in traffic violence during the pandemic.

The legislation, which is the third attempt since 2017 to allow some California cities to pilot speed cameras, comes at a time when the Bay Area’s largest cities are struggling to rein in severe and fatal crashes.