University of California – Berkeley student Kevin D. Reyes used the recent anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s passing to reflect how learning history influenced his opinion of the President.

June 5 marks the 10th anniversary of former president Ronald Reagan’s passing. I vaguely remember watching the breaking news reports as a 10-year-old kid. It was the first time I had ever heard the name Ronald Reagan and my second memory regarding politicians; the first was the 2000 election coverage as a 6-year-old. Since then, throughout my teenage years, I was a harsh critic of the Reagan administration — as are a lot of people on this campus.

But now I walk proudly down this campus sporting a Reagan/Bush ‘84 campaign sweatshirt. And, of course, I receive some eye rolls and murmurs in the background. Yet this is the reason I am writing this article: Where I once held the same views on Reagan as the typical UC Berkeley student, seeing Reagan in a negative light, I now regard him as a transformative president in international history. I was able to do so because I approached learning more about this president from an open-minded perspective. What I have noticed as a history major is the lack of this approach from many students. When we have a chance at learning from and discussing with renowned scholars, we often let our already narrow perspectives block any potential for real learning.

…The legacy of the Reagan administration is tainted by the Iran-Contra affair and even the controversy of Reaganomics, but I invite students here at Berkeley to look at Reagan beyond the things we already know. This was not an evil man hell-bent on destroying the Soviet Union or disregarding human rights. Reagan took great thoughtfulness in his actions as president — as both an ideological man and a man of practical compromise.

He believed that the Soviet Union was not the problem; it was communism. He criticized that system for violating human rights, continuing Jimmy Carter’s human rights revolution. Furthermore, he was also hostile to Nixon’s detente and committed his administration to changing the previous strategies of containment that had failed. In foreign policy, his agency as America’s 40th president helped end Soviet-American estrangement and bring forth the ascendance of the new world order in international relations.