Bryan Pesta



He is a white, British Cocker Spaniel. I also have a black, American Cocker Spaniel. The white cock is larger than the black cock. Odd...! Bryan J. Pesta is a hereditarianism pseudoscientist, self-described "racial realist" and former editor-in-chief of Psych who has written controversial racialist papers for the white supremacist journal Mankind Quarterly. He was a Professor of Graduate Business Programs at Cleveland State University in Cleveland, Ohio until he was fired in March 2022 after he was accused of unethical conduct for violating data-use by uploading restricted data to an "unapproved online forensic DNA-phenotyping service". Pesta has controversially published racist pseudoscience with white nationalists John Fuerst and Emil Kirkegaard. After his sacking, Pesta admitted to receiving money from the eugenics Pioneer Fund whilst working at Cleveland. He is an atheist.

Pesta has supported racist stereotypes and pseudoscience black men have the biggest penis size. This is despite the fact peer-reviewed studies have disproven this. A 2015 systematic review of 15,521 men found "no indications of differences in racial variability", and it is not possible to draw any conclusions about penis size and race from the available literature. Former students from his classes at Cleveland State University have stated he often told offensive penis jokes.

In December 2022, Pesta became a writer for the right-wing magazine Quillette.

Racialist pseudoscience
Pesta's academic background is primarily in business management and psychology, with a master's degree in labor relations and human resources from Cleveland State University and Ph.D. in psychology with a concentration in cognitive aging from the University of Akron.

Pesta has done a decent amount of legitimate research, much of it published in reputable journals, on psychological topics like memory and the link between religion and intelligence. However, he is also active in promoting discredited theories about race and intelligence, despite having no publicly known credentials in relevant fields such as biology or genetics.

For instance, he pals around with Emil Kirkegaard and other racialist pseudoscientists, serving on the editorial board of one of Kirkegaard's OpenPsych pseudojournals, (co-)authoring three articles in these journals and reviewing four others, further coauthoring a recent article with Kirkegaard in the overtly racist Mankind Quarterly. He used to edit Wikipedia's article about back in 2010. In 2019, he returned to create Michael A. Woodley of Menie's Wikipedia article (which was deleted in 2022).

Pesta controversially co-authors pseudoscientific race and intelligence papers with white nationalists John Fuerst and Emil Kirkegaard.

Psych journal
Because OpenPsych was heavily criticized by the media in 2018 for its association with eugenics and white supremacy, most racialists stopped publishing in it. In 2019, Pesta who served on their editorial board, became "Special Issue Editor" of Psych's Beyond Thirty Years of Research on Race Differences in Cognitive Ability. The project was set up to validate J. Philippe Rushton and Arthur Jensen's pseudoscientific hereditarianism research.

In July 2019 over a controversy with Richard Lynn, the Psych journal no longer publishes racist pseudoscience. Pesta no longer sits on the Editorial Board.

Bryan J Pesta's lab
Between 2019 and 2022, Pesta claimed on ResearchGate to operate a laboratory at Cleveland State University. There were only two "research fellows" of the lab, John Fuerst and Emil Kirkegaard. On 18 October 2022, Kirkegaard claimed the laboratory never existed: "Everybody who uses ResearchGate knows that it will occasionally suggest that recent work was done by some lab, if you click yes to that, it will auto-generate one of these fictive labs." However, this is contradicted by the fact Pesta specifically listed his lab as Cleveland State University under "institution" when he could have left it blank. According to ResearchGate: "A lab is a group of scientists, led by a senior researcher, who conduct experiments and research together on a specific topic. You can now quickly set up your lab on ResearchGate to showcase the work your lab is doing." If Pesta did not want to mislead people into thinking he ran a laboratory at Cleveland State University, he should have not typed in that place as the lab's institution.

2022 activity
Pesta continues to publish racialist pseudoscience with John Fuerst, Emil Kirkegaard, and Jan te Nijenhuis.

In March, 2022 Pesta was fired from Cleveland State University:

As of November 2022, Pesta claims to be unemployable in the United States and is begging for donations from the far-right community:

Various racists and white nationalists such as Emil Kirkegaard, Charles Murray, and Steve Sailer at The Unz Review have supported Pesta.

Despite claiming to be in a bad financial situtation and begging for donations, public records show before being fired from Cleveland State University, Pesta's annual salary was $172,775 which is 278 percent higher than the average salary at the same university. Pesta has set up online crowdfunds and has recieved more than $10,000 in donations.

2023 activity
On March 16, 2023 Pesta filed a lawsuit against Cleveland University and six other defendants. Pesta's attorney, Frederick C. Kelly, previously was hired by white nationalist. Pesta is seeking "money damages and injunctive relief against all defendants." Pesta claims his sacking was a violation of his First Amendment rights to academic freedom, freedom of speech, and freedom of association. Pesta also seeks a bizarre declaratory judgment:

His lawsuit has been supported by various far-right websites including Steve Sailer's blog column at The Unz Review.

Emil Kirkegaard, Pesta's main attack-dog, has harassed various individuals on social media mentioned by Pesta in his complaint for a civil case by calling them "terrorists".