In 1966, Ronald Reagan was elected governor of California on a promise to “clean up the mess at Berkeley,” which he described as “a haven for communist sympathizers, protesters, and sex deviants.” Reagan got the school’s president fired, attempted to cut the educational budget, and, in 1969, ordered an armed confrontation with student demonstrators who were protesting the war. Officers opened fire with shotguns and tear gas. One student, a bystander, was killed. Another was permanently blinded, and 32 were hospitalized with severe injuries.

On May 1, 1970, President Richard Nixon told an audience at the Pentagon: “You see these bums, you know, blowing up the campuses. Listen, the boys that are on the college campuses today are the luckiest people in the world, going to the greatest universities, and here they are burning up the books, storming around about [the Vietnam War].” Three days later, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on student protesters at Kent State University, leaving four students dead and nine wounded. On May 15, local police killed two black students and left twelve more wounded during a demonstration at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi.

Somehow, despite decades’ worth of counterexamples, the American mainstream remains convinced that campus activists represent a unique threat to public safety and civil discourse.