Inner Sunset Action Committee v. Joseph A. Califano, Jr.

The plaintiffs-appellants, Inner Sunset Action Committee and Mount-Sutro Defense Committee appeal to this court from an order of the District Court entered August 13, 1976, denying their motion for a preliminary injunction against F. David Mathews (now Joseph A. Califano, Jr.), Secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW). The motion named not only the Secretary but also the Regents of the University of California, the President of the University, David S. Saxon, and Chancellor Francis A. Sooy of the University of California, San Francisco Campus (state defendants). The state defendants were dismissed from the action on July 16, 1976, by the state court.

The state defendants had sought to construct a badly needed dentistry building on the campus of the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). One-half of the funds required for the project were to be obtained from state sources, and the remainder from the United States through the office of HEW and the National Manpower Training Act of 1971. The grounds upon which the injunction was sought was that HEW had not prepared and submitted an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) as required under the…