Trustees of Boston University v. Licensing Board

Boston University (university), a nonprofit educational institution in Boston, applied to the Boston Licensing Board (board) for licenses for sixty-two apartment buildings which it planned to use as dormitories to house undergraduate students. After a public hearing, the board granted licenses for forty-two of the designated buildings and denied licenses for *476the remaining twenty1. All the buildings for which licenses were denied are located in the “Audubon Circle” neighborhood, where expansion of the university had become highly controversial. The board issued a decision stating as its…