Four years ago, I was a tenured full professor at Cleveland State University. Today, I’m fifty-eight years old, unemployed, uninsured, deeply in debt, and surviving by dismantling the retirement account I built over twenty-five years.

In 2019, colleagues and I published a peer-reviewed paper examining whether genetics might partly explain average racial differences in cognitive ability. The paper addressed a question that many people consider unacceptable even to investigate.

Complaints followed. Students protested. Activists demanded my removal. Cleveland State opened a research-misconduct investigation and fired me in March 2022.

The allegations against me did not involve fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism. They involved disputed procedures governing NIH-controlled genetic data. Whatever one thinks of my research or the procedural violations alleged against me, the punishment was total: I lost the career I had spent my entire adult life building.

I challenged my termination in federal court, arguing that Cleveland State had violated my constitutional rights. I lost at summary judgment, and the Sixth Circuit subsequently affirmed the decision.

I have documented the case in my book, Condemned: The Taboo Science of Race and Intelligence, including the research, the investigation, my termination, and what I believe were profound failures of fairness by both the university and the federal courts.

The legal battle is largely over. The financial consequences are not.

Since my termination, I’ve applied for approximately 200 jobs inside and outside academia. I haven’t received one interview.

With no salary, I’ve paid approximately $120,000 in legal fees, along with my living expenses, from my retirement savings. I now owe approximately $70,000 in federal taxes, have no health insurance, and am consuming the only money available to support me in old age.

At fifty-eight, rebuilding a career after being publicly branded a research-misconduct offender has proven nearly impossible.

What I am asking for

I’m raising funds to obtain health insurance, meet basic living expenses, address my financial obligations, and preserve enough of my remaining retirement savings to rebuild through writing and independent research.

I am not asking anyone to agree with every conclusion I have reached about race, intelligence, genetics, or my case. I am asking people who believe that scholars should be able to investigate controversial questions, and that losing one's career should not amount to a lifetime sentence, to consider helping me.

Any contribution would directly and materially change my circumstances. Sharing this campaign with someone who may understand what happened to me would help as well.

And if you would rather support my work than make a donation, buying a copy of my book would help too.

I spent decades believing tenure protected a scholar’s freedom to follow evidence wherever it led. I learned too late that some questions can cost a scholar everything.

Thank you for reading my story.

Bryan J. Pesta, PhD

Condemned: The Taboo Science of Race and Intelligence

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GQ58TPQW

P.S. The funds previously raised through this campaign helped support my legal fight. The revised goal reflects my current effort to survive financially and rebuild now that the litigation has largely ended.