Ronald Reagan launched his political career by running for California governor in 1966, vowing to send “the welfare bums back to work,” and to “clean up the mess at Berkeley.” California voters were tired of the expanding welfare state and news reports of out-of-control college campuses, complete with violent demonstrations, property damage and civil unrest.
Neil Smelser, who was a Berkeley professor of sociology during the Reagan years, told The UC Berkeley News, “Reagan took aim at the university for being irresponsible for failing to punish these dissident students. He said, ‘Get them out of there. Throw them out.