John received his doctorate in demography and sociology from Brown University and then taught at Washington University in St. Louis and the City University of New York (CUNY). He also designed and directed research while at the Office of Research at US HUD and served at the White House on the President's Initiative on Race. He joined the faculty of the School of Public Affairs at Baruch College/CUNY as Professor in 1999 and was elected to the Doctoral faculty at the Graduate Center of CUNY in 2000. He has published over sixty articles and book-length studies. His books include: The Best Eight Blocks in Harlem; Housing Desegregation and Federal Policy; Mortgage Lending, Racial Discrimination and Federal Policy; Choosing a Better Life? Evaluating the Moving to Opportunity Experiment; Wars on Terrorism and Iraq: Human Rights, Unilateralism, and U.S. Foreign Policy; Fragile Rights within Cities; and Moving to Opportunity: An American Story of Fighting Ghetto Poverty, Oxford University Press, 2010.