The Case For Kristen Clarke, President Biden’s Nominee To Lead DOJ’s Civil Rights Division
This week the Senate is scheduled to vote to confirm Kristen Clarke to be Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, one of the most important components of the Department.
At the Justice Department’s founding in 1870, in the wake of the Civil War and emancipation of enslaved African Americans, the Department’s most immediate concern was the preservation of civil rights. Today, the Civil Rights Division continues that original mission.
Tragically, former President Trump and his Attorneys General Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr twisted the Division into a tool to target and discriminate against marginalized Americans. In the last four years, the Civil Rights Division rescinded guidance that protected transgender students, prohibited the use of consent decrees with local police departments that had engaged in systemic misconduct, and abandoned its prior legal positions supporting Americans’ fundamental right to vote.
Americans need a Justice Department that defends the civil rights of all Americans. And so, at this critical moment in history, we must confirm an Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division capable of restoring its credibility and revitalizing its role. Thankfully, we have such a nominee in Clarke.
Clarke is uniquely qualified to defend the civil rights of all Americans. She is a veteran of two of the Civil Rights Division’s flagship offices — defending voting rights in the Voting Section and, later, in the Criminal Section, prosecuting hate crimes. Currently, Clarke leads one of the nation’s preeminent civil rights organizations, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. She also previously co-led the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund’s voting rights work and served as the chief civil rights official for the New York State Attorney General’s Office. Notably, Clarke would be the first Senate-confirmed woman and woman of color to lead the Civil Rights Division.
Given her depth and breadth of experience, it is no surprise that a broad and bipartisan coalition supports Clarke’s nomination. For instance, former Republican appointees at the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission, a former Republican National Committee Chairman, and a bipartisan group of State Attorneys General support Clarke’s nomination. Clarke also enjoys the strong support of numerous law enforcement organizations, such as the Major Cities Chiefs Association, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement, the Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association, and more. And, of course, civil rights organizations have wholeheartedly thrown their weight behind Clarke’s nomination.
Nonetheless, far-right political partisans have resorted to baseless smears in an attempt to prevent Clarke’s confirmation. I do not want to give any more airtime to these false claims. After all, Attorney General Merrick Garland said at his own confirmation hearing that Clarke “is a person of integrity” and “I have every reason to want her [confirmed].” However, I feel that I must briefly address one of the most vicious — a false accusation of anti-Semitism.
Several Jewish groups — including the Union for Reform Judaism, the nation’s largest Jewish denomination — have enthusiastically endorsed Clarke’s nomination and rejected these smears against her. Moreover, Clarke’s own career emphatically demonstrates that she defends the civil rights of all Americans, including those of the Jewish faith.
As the chief civil rights official at the New York Attorney General’s Office, Clarke played a key role in launching a religious rights initiative to address faith-based discrimination and violations of religious rights through public education, outreach, and law enforcement. Through that work, she repeatedly defended Jewish employees’ right to observe the Sabbath. As President and Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, she has been a leader in confronting the growth of anti-Semitic hate and harassment online, successfully working to shut down virulent white supremacist and anti-Semitic websites and defending victims of online harassment.
Given the importance of our right to religious liberty, one would think my Republican colleagues would be quick to celebrate Clarke’s work upholding it. Yet, as with Vanita Gupta’s nomination to be Associate Attorney General, several have chosen to ignore Clarke’s exceptional qualifications in favor of these baseless attacks.
I hope the public will look at Clarke’s record instead. She has dedicated her entire career to defending the civil rights of all Americans, and is singularly qualified to lead the Civil Rights Division at this moment in history. She deserves to be confirmed and she deserves the same bipartisan support in the Senate as she has received outside of the chamber.
The Senate has a choice to make: we can help advance the civil rights and liberties of the American people, or we can stand in the way of progress. My hope is that we can come together and choose the former. It’s time to show America that liberty and justice are not lost to history.
