Kristen Clarke

Kristen M. Clarke (born 1975) is an American attorney who has served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the United States Department of Justice since May 2021.

Clarke previously served as president of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

She also managed the Civil Rights Bureau of the New York State Attorney General's Office under Eric Schneiderman.

While presiding over the BSA in 1994 she invited Tony Martin to speak.

Clarke graduated from Harvard in 1997, then earned a Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School in 2000.

After graduating she worked as a trial attorney in the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.

In this capacity, she served as a federal prosecutor and worked on voting rights, hate crimes and human trafficking cases.

In 2006, Clarke joined the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, where she co-led the political participation group and focused on voting rights and election law reform.

In 2011, Clarke was appointed director of the civil rights bureau of then Attorney General of New York, Eric Schneiderman, where she led initiatives on criminal justice issues and housing discrimination.

Under this initiative, the bureau reached agreements with retailers on racial profiling of their customers, police departments on policy reform, and with school districts on the school-to-prison pipeline.

In 2015, Clarke was appointed president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

One of her first roles was leading Election Protection, a voter protection coalition.

The New York Times described her as "one of the nation's foremost advocates for voting rights protections."

In 2015, Clarke 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 was presented with the 2017 Choate Alumni Award at a school-wide meeting in May 2017.

At the awards presentation she asked students to envision and work towards "a world with more justice, greater equity, and equal access."

Clarke earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University, where she was president of the Black Student's Association.

In 2019, Clarke successfully represented Taylor Dumpson, the first African American woman student body president of American University, in her landmark case against white supremacists.

President Joe Biden in 2021 selected Clarke to head the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.

The U.S. Senate confirmed her nomination on May 25, 2021, by a vote of 51–48.

Clarke made history as the first woman to be confirmed to lead the Civil Rights Division after she was sworn in the same day.

Clarke's parents immigrated to Brooklyn from Jamaica.

She has said that she "grew up in a household that was about discipline, working hard in school and about making the most of every opportunity".

Clarke was a member of Prep for Prep, a non-profit organization that looks to support students of color in accessing private school education.

She attended Choate Rosemary Hall, where she was the only girl to join the boys' wrestling squad.

In 2019, Clarke represented Taylor Dumpson, the first African American woman student body president of American University, in her lawsuit against avowed neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin, who initiated a racist "troll storm" against her, making her fear for her life and disrupting her ability to pursue her education.

Clarke successfully fought for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to recognize that hateful online trolling can interfere with access to public accommodation, as well as securing damages and a restraining order.

In early 2020, Clarke said that she was "deeply concerned that African American communities are being hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, and that racial bias may be impacting the access they receive to testing and healthcare."

In the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, Clarke described the pandemic, record rates of unemployment and racial injustice caused by police brutality as a "perfect storm" for social unrest in the United States.

Clarke handled the legal argument in district court in Shelby County v. Holder.

In 2020, she testified before Congress about barriers to the vote.

She has advocated for passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

She sued the United States Postal Service during the pandemic because of delays with ballots.

After John Lewis died, she called for honoring his life by passage of a bill to restore the Voting Rights Act.

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.