CSU: Ronald Reagan Telegram on Campus Disruption, 1967

This series includes meeting minutes, notes, correspondence, newsletters, newspaper articles and publications dealing with issues of an evolving California State University system in the 1960’s. Much of the materials provide insight on Heilbron and other trustees in dealing with the volatile issues of free speech, student unrest, curriculum, collective bargaining, and faculty relations. The parameters of free speech were tested by several campus incidents including the Eldridge Cleaver experimental course at the University of California (1967); the avant-garde play, The Beard (1967) and an exhibit of nude sculptures at Long Beach State College (1968). The cases of George Murray (1968), a part-time instructor at San Francisco State College, and Bruce Franklin (1972), a student at Stanford University, delineated the concepts of academic freedom and incitement to violence. Reaction to these concepts include a four-page telegram from Governor Ronald Reagan instructing the Trustees to deal with the violence on college campuses (1967), a draft resolution outlining the Trustees position on campus violence (1967), and a letter from Heibron to Governor Reagan (1968) addressing issues from a previous letter to the trustees on youth disorder, faculty and administrative resistance to law enforcement, freedom of speech and other issues.

Other materials in the series include letters to Heilbron regarding potential college locations in Bakersfield and Ventura County (1967), establishing tuition (1967) and questionnaire results from faculty on a wide range of issues (n.d.). Faculty relations were tested with lawsuits by reassigned or dismissed professors (1967), dismissal of faculty for not signing loyalty oaths (1967), the 60-40 limitation for upper/lower ranks (1967) and the teacher’s strike at San Francisco State University (1969). These files are arranged in chronological order.