January 23, 1967 (UC Irvine), 2013, Ink on Duralar, 25 x 37 ½ inches

Although UCI was a less significant center of antiwar activism than like Berkeley or UCSB, I am fascinated with the images of students occupying new campus spaces that had been built for them only a few years earlier.  This drawing is from the first major protest at UC Irvine: On January 2, 1967, Ronald Reagan defeated Pat Brown to become Governor of California, partially running on a promise “clean up the mess at Berkeley.” Soon after Reagan’s election, on January 20, The UC Board of Regents dismissed Clark Kerr, popular president of the UC system, who had refused to expel students who participated in UC Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement protests. (Kerr also opposed UC budget cuts.) On January 23, 1500 UC Irvine students, faculty and staff participated in the first organized campus-wide protest, directed at Governor Ronald Reagan and the UC Regents.
Source: UC Irvine Libraries