An amicus letter was filed Monday in support of Saving Berkeley’s Neighborhoods amid the ongoing lawsuit to cap student enrollment at UC Berkeley.

After the case to freeze enrollment was reaffirmed in the two lower courts, UC Berkeley appealed to the state Supreme Court to place a hold on the enrollment freeze. The amicus letter was authored by attorney Leila Moncharsh, and discourages the California Supreme Court from granting campus’s appeal, claiming the enrollment freeze is vital to ensure the UC Board of Regents complies with its “obligations to analyze and mitigate the impacts of their enrollment plans.”

However, the ongoing litigation continues to be a divisive issue among members of the student body and the city of Berkeley.

“The court-mandated decrease in enrollment would be a tragic outcome for thousands of students who have worked incredibly hard to gain admission to Berkeley,” said campus spokesperson Dan Mogulof in an email.

ASUC External Affairs Vice President Riya Master expressed concern over the potential ramifications a cap on enrollment could have for students. Master added she worries students are being treated as “disposable tenants.”

City Councilmember Rigel Robinson sided with UC Berkeley and stated that the relationship between “Town and Gown” has never been stronger, referring to the relationship between campus and city.

“Town and Gown have grown dramatically, and we will continue to. But we can do so collaboratively,” Robinson said in an email. “That’s what our settlement agreement represents.”

Neighborhood advocacy groups came to a different consensus, however, stating that UC Berkeley should not expand before conducting a more thorough environmental impact study.

Phil Bokovoy, the president of Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods, expressed concern about the impacts increased enrollment would have on city tenants.

“If you have three thousand more students, that means a high percentage of existing residents are going to be forced out of their housing,” Bokovoy said.

Bokovoy pointed to campus’s Urban Displacement Project, which mapped gentrification and displacement in the Bay Area.

Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods showed a 33% increase in houselessness in the city of Berkeley between 2015 and 2019, a period of substantial increases in enrollment.

Additionally, Bokovoy added a high percentage of the people who are being displaced are at risk of facing houselessness.

“Gentrification in Berkeley and Oakland, which UC Berkeley’s enrollment increases exacerbate, continues to push low-income households out of the area,” Moncharsh said in the letter. “These low-income households are disproportionately people of color.”