John Sailer, Review of Myopia Management Journalist Profile

Articles

Short queer comedy made in New Jersey is a winner

1 week ago | outinjersey.net | John Sailer

“We’re proud it all started right here in New Jersey,” said the filmmakers of the short queer comedy Family Affair. The film was primarily filmed at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft and premiered last month at the Academy Award-qualifying Provincetown International Film Festival. Family Affair has since won Best Comedy and Best Director at the Jersey Shore Film Festival. It went on to win many awards at other festivals across the country.
The Mellon Foundation Is Funding Radical Activists in Higher Education

3 weeks ago | city-journal.org | John Sailer

At Columbia University, the Racial Justice and Abolition Democracy Project created a curriculum to help college students imagine a “society without jails and prisons.” At Morgan State University, the Black Queer Everything initiative developed “transformative pedagogies” about “racism, inequality, and injustice.” And at UCLA, the Race in the Global Past through Native Lenses program promoted using “tribal critical race theory” to interpret precolonial history.
A Death Knell for Diversity Statements

1 month ago | city-journal.org | John Sailer

The University of California system has ended its use of mandatory diversity statements in faculty hiring, repudiating a controversial practice that it had pioneered and long championed. It’s hard to overstate the decision’s significance. Diversity statements—short essays describing faculty candidates’ commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion—are controversial even among the professoriate. One survey of professors found that half regarded them as ideological litmus tests.
How a University Program Skirts DEI Bans

1 month ago | city-journal.org | John Sailer

For the last two years, a program with the ungainly name “Re-Imagining STEM Equity Utilizing Postdoctoral Pathways” (RISE UPP)—a large-scale university-hiring initiative funded through a $10 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant—has faced a legal dilemma. The project aims to recruit and subsequently hire “minoritized postdoctoral scholars”—part of the “fellow-to-faculty” pipeline that, in practice, installs activists in tenure-track positions.
The National Science Foundation Funds a Program in Maryland for “Minoritized” Scholars

1 month ago | city-journal.org | John Sailer

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is giving the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UBMC) $10 million to implement a diversity-focused hiring model in Maryland, and, through sub-grants, at several other large state university systems.
The Fellow-to-Faculty Pipeline Threatens Academic Freedom

1 month ago | city-journal.org | John Sailer

David Turner is a fellow and Assistant Professor of Black Life and Racial Justice at UCLA’s school of public affairs. In his spare time, Turner does community activism, having co-founded the “Police-Free LAUSD Coalition,” a group that calls for wholesale police abolition. Activism also shows up in his scholarship.
How Universities Get Away With Hiring Radicals

2 months ago | city-journal.org | John Sailer

In the days after the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, Jemma Decristo, a UC Davis professor, took to social media to express support for the violent energies that had erupted in the Middle East. “HELL YEAH,” Decristo wrote on X, responding to a report that protesters had set fire to the Israeli embassy in Jordan. Reposting news of protests at the United States embassy in Lebanon, Decristo added, “[fire icon] to the US embassy. US out of everywhere. US GO HOME.
"Settle Down" Delivers the light queer comedy we need right now

2 months ago | outinjersey.net | John Sailer

While some are talking of annexing Canada and others are considering escaping there from the current U.S. regime’s expected oppression, producers for OutTV in Canada are delivering the light queer comedy we need right now, and it’s coming out just in time for Valentine’s Day. With nary a straight character involved, Settle Down tells the story of Mason, a podcasting matchmaker whose own relationship takes a backseat to those he initiates and nurtures for others.
OSU Pushed for Discriminatory Recruiting Practices, New Video Shows

2 months ago | city-journal.org | John Sailer

Ohio State University’s dean of natural and mathematical sciences, Susan Olesik, told a faculty search committee in 2022 that job candidates’ “diversity” must be valued on par with those candidates’ scholarship, according to a video I’ve obtained. “I wanted to make some clarification points on the rules of the road here, with respect to your search,” Olesik said in the video, created in the fall of 2022.
Ohio State University Hired Based on Race and Gender, Emails Show

Jan 23, 2025 | city-journal.org | John Sailer

President Trump’s new executive order, “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” has doubtless already sent America’s college administrators scrambling.