Post'''s website endorsing Barack Obama's presidential bid in the Democratic primaries. In that same year, he helped initiate Progressives for Obama (now called Progressive America Rising), a group of political progressives that provided assistance for Obama in his initial presidential campaign. Hayden was known widely in California as a staunch endorser of animal rights and was responsible for writing the bill popularly known as the Hayden Act, which improved protection of pets and extended holding periods for pets confined as strays or surrendered to shelters. In 2016, Hayden ran to be one of California's representatives to the Democratic National Committee. Though he originally leaned towards Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary, Hayden later announced he would support Hillary Clinton and cast his vote for her when the primary reached California. He also claimed that he never endorsed Sanders and only supported his campaign with the hope that it would push Clinton's policies leftward. Hayden maintained that he remained radical towards the end of his life, commenting, "I'm Jefferson in terms of democracy," he said, "I'm Thoreau in terms of environment, and Crazy Horse in terms of social movements". In his last years, however, he also described himself as "an archeological dig", noting the varied layers to his life, the many publications he produced, and the different ways future researchers would likely interpret his life and work. Academic career Hayden was a teaching assistant at the University of Michigan Journalism Department in the early 1960s. The Law of the Press was one of the courses he taught. Hayden taught numerous courses on social movements, two at Scripps College—one on the Long War and one on gangs in America—and a course called "From the '60s to the Obama Generation" at Pitzer College. He also taught at Occidental College and at Harvard University's Institute of Politics. He taught a class at University of California, Los Angeles on protests from Port Huron to the present. Hayden taught a class in political science at the University of Southern California during the 1977–78 school year. He was the author or editor of 19 books, including The Long Sixties: From 1960 to Barack Obama, Writings for a Democratic Society: The Tom Hayden Reader, and his memoir, Reunion, and served on the editorial board of The Nation. His book Hell No: The Forgotten Power of the Vietnam Peace Movement, completed in the months before his death