Kristen Clarke

Kristen Clarke handled the legal argument in district court in Shelby County Alabama v. Holder. In 2020, she testified before Congress about barriers to the vote.[21] She has advocated for passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. She has participated in the annual bridge crossing in Selma, Alabama to commemorate Bloody Sunday. [22] She sued the United States Postal Service during the pandemic because of delays with ballots.[23] After John Lewis died, she called for honoring his life by passage of a bill to restore the Voting Rights Act.[24] Clarke honored John Lewis in 2017 with an award named after John F, Kennedy.[25] She appears with Stacey Abrams in the 2020 documentary All In: The Fight for Democracy. In November 2020 Lebron James [] thanked her for supporting the work of his organization – More Than a Vote.

Her work also concerns LGBTQ equality. In 2015 she opened an investigation into the Boy Scouts to look at the national group's ban on openly gay adults and alleged hiring rejections based on sexual orientation in New York. [] The investigation was about “ensuring equal protection under the law for all New Yorkers, including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals who live and work in New York.” [] In July 2015 her office secured an agreement with the Boy Scouts of America to end their policy of excluding openly gay adults from serving as leaders in the organization.[] The terms of the agreement applied nationally. In an editorial with Chad Griffin she called for policymakers and the public to treat the recent wave of hate-motivated violence toward trans women of color as a national crisis.[]

She has worked to ensuring equal access for people with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act. She secured agreements with bus companies [], major retailers [], movie theatres, theatre clubs [] and polling sites. []

Clarke secured settlements on religious rights. These agreements helped employees at NYC Health And Hospitals Corporation [], the largest municipal healthcare organization in the country [], by ensuring that employees’ religious accommodations requests comply with state and local law and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[] She secured similar agreements with Milrose Consulting.[]

She supported a legal effort behind Cesar Vargas who became the first undocumented person to carry a law license in New York.[] She successfully sued the Trump administration when they tried to revoke Deferred Enforced Departure for Liberian Americans.[]

In 2005 she co-edited Seeking Higher Ground: The Hurricane Katrina Crisis, Race, and Public Policy Reader with Manning Marable. The book examines the racial impact of the disaster and the failure of governmental, corporate and private agencies to respond to the plight of the New Orleans black community.[]

She works to fight the spread of hate online. Clarke said: “Online hate must be confronted if we are going to make meaningful progress in the fight against hate, so this is a really significant victory.” [] This involved getting Facebook to extend its ban on hate speech to prohibit the promotion and support of white nationalism and white separatism. [] Her advocacy led to a temporary shutdown of stormfront (website) [26] a white supremacist website. [] Stormfront is known as the oldest white supremacist site.[] At a Congressional hearing, she noted white nationalism was about “real issues that are truly a life-and-death matter for far too many.” [27]

Kristen Clarke sued the Proud Boys after they attacked the Metropolitan AME Church and other churches in Washington, D.C.[28] A Black Lives Matter banner was stolen from the church and burned during a pro-Trump march on December 12, 2020. [29] After the suit was filed, she said: "Black churches and other religious institutions have a long and ugly history of being targeted by white supremacists in racist and violent attacks meant to intimidate and create fear. Our lawsuit aims to hold those who engage in such action accountable." [30] She leads the James Byrd Jr. Center to Stop Hate at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Together with Spencer Freedman, she supervised the Religious Rights Unit at the New York State Attorney General's Office.[31] She exposed a member of the Proud Boys inside the East Hampton Police Department in Connecticut.[32] She has fought for passage of the federal Anti-Lynching Prevention Law.[33] As a keynote speaker for Georgetown University’s Center for Jewish Civilization, she said: “White nationalism should be of profound concern to all Americans because it affects all communities and tears at the fabric of our nation.”[]

She leads a Board of over 200 lawyers that includes major law firms across the country. She also works with private lawyers who provide pro bono support for cases. Election Protection is an example.

On January 7, 2021, President-elect Joe Biden chose Clarke to head the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. Clarke said in response, "If I am fortunate enough to be confirmed, we will turn the page on hate and close the door on discrimination by enforcing our federal civil rights laws."[2]

Four days later, Fox News revealed a letter Clarke wrote to The Harvard Crimson as an undergraduate claiming that Blacks had "superior physical and mental abilities" due to their higher levels of melanin.[34][35] Clarke claimed that the article was supposed to be a satirical statement about "fighting one ridiculous absurd racist theory with another ridiculous absurd theory," Clarke explained, "and the goal was all about [exposing] the ugly racist underpinnings of the Bell Curve theory."[36] A fact-checking by Newsweek, however, found no evidence at the time that it was intended as such.[37] The Black Students Association worked to promote debate on campus about the alleged racist fallacies of the controversial Bell Curve theory. [38]

The Jewish News Syndicate also noted Clarke's role as leader of Harvard's Black Student Association in 1994 in inviting antisemitic conspiracy theorist professor Tony Martin as a guest speaker on campus.[39] On January 14, 2021, Clarke apologized for inviting Martin, saying, "Giving someone like him a platform, it's not something I would do again."[40] Asked if she denounces Martin and his views, Clarke said, “I do, 100%. I unequivocally denounce antisemitism.”[36]