Following an ultimatum issued by the district earlier this year, The George Washington University filed suit in Federal District Court last Wednesday in an attempt to block the district government from restricting its planned expansion.

The D.C.Board of Zoning and Adjustment placed similar restrictions on Georgetown University’s 10-Year Campus Plan last month by capping full-time undergraduate enrollment at 5,637.

Georgetown has not yet said whether it will consider filing suit as well.

The suit follows a March 29, 2001 order by the BZA which retroactively placed a cap enrollment at a 7,380 full-time undergraduates at George Washington University, 200 more students than are currently enrolled. GW sentout letters of acceptance prior to te decision, and the universityprojects that the cap will be exceeded.

The order also stipulated that George Washington house at least 70 percent of its undergraduate population before any further building can be done, dormitories excepted. The enrollment cap is not unprecedented; a 1985 BZA ruling capped George Washington’s total graduate and undergraduate enrollment at 20,000. George Washington is significantly below this with a current enrollment of 16,200.

The George Washington lawsuit seeks an injunction against the city from enforcing threats made by the BZA to reject George Washington’s campus plan unless the university immediately began housing more students on campus, according to George Washington Senior Counsel Charles K. Barber.

“We have made every effort to reasonably negotiate a compromise and the BZA has responded with a mandate so restrictive that it would cause irreparable harm to GW’s character, academic mission and future,” Barber said. “We have been left with only one unhappy alternative.”

Barber questioned whether the city is even legally allowed to restrict enrollment procedures and cap admissions.

Last Wednesday’s filing contains a comprehensive outline of what George Washington contends are arbitrary and unconstitutional conditions placed on the university. The university also alleges that the BZA order irrationally and unconstitutionally discriminates against undergraduates solely because of their status as students.

More importantly, Barber said, the restrictions significantly impact the academic plans for the university.

According to Barber, university plans for a new School of Business and Public Management building are postponed.

The restrictions are not retroactive on approved projects, so a 371-bed hospital the university is constructing near the Foggy Bottom Metro Station will be finished, but any permits for future building projects will not be granted.

Originally, George Washington officials proposed housing 70 percent of undergraduate students on campus in an effort to persuade the BZA to approve the campus plan. According to Barber, the panel decided to enact this mandate of 70 percent on-campus housing, but did not recognize at least three housing complexes the university owns as on-campus housing. Although university owned, the buildings are out of the recognized campus perimeter.

Sixty-two percent of undergraduate students live in on-campus housing, Barber said. By not including the other university-owned buildings and cutting the size of the campus, the BZA cut that number to 52 percent, he said.

George Washington had been planning to build dormitories to house 2,000 students in order to meet what university officials said were stringent regulations before the BZA’s March decision.

The lawsuit is one more in a series of conflicts between Foggy Bottom neighbors and the university, with residents complaining about students’ rowdy behavior and the ambitions of the university – now the district’s largest private employer.

In September 2000, the D.C. Office of Planning proposed an amendment to the D.C. Human Rights Act of 1977, designed to limit the number of students residing in neighborhoods surrounding D.C. universities. The act specifically protects students as a group from discrimination. Opponents of the amendment said that if it passed, it would allow intentional discrimination against students as a group, an argument similar to that set forth by Barber concerning George Washington’s expansion.

Earlier this academic year, heated relations between Georgetown and its neighbors resulted in a $100,000 lawsuit brought against the university for failing to control student behavior on and off campus, and even encouraging loud noise and rowdy behavior.

Georgetown communications officials did not return phone calls placed yesterday.