He served as president of San Jose State University from 1970 to 1978 and was a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution since 1978.

Fulfilling Bunzel's goal, in the fall of 1949 the Liberal Union worked with NAACP president Walter White to send recruitment letters to over 500 historically black high schools[b] encouraging students to apply to Princeton,[5] after which three were accepted.

[6][7] John Bunzel ’46, whose education had been interrupted by his service in World War II, returned to campus in 1946 to finish his final two years of college.

He led Princeton University students who shared Broderick’s commitments to form the Liberal Union in 1946 and served as its president until his graduation in 1948.

His initiatives included expanding the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, and opening the Steinbeck Center and Nuclear Science Facility.