Howard prof, Biden's pick to lead DOJ 'Civil Rights Division,' said Black people are 'superior' to Whites

President-elect Joe Biden’s pick to become Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division is a professor who has argued that Black people are mentally and physically superior to White people.

In a 1994 letter written in her capacity as president of Harvard University’s Black Students Association, Kristen Clarke, who went on to become Howard University School of Law Professor, wrote in a letter the editor of The Harvard Crimson, urging them to “search for truth regarding the genetic differences between Blacks and Whites.”

Clarke wrote that “at the core of the human brain is the ‘locus coeruleus’ which is a structure that is Black because it contains large amounts of (neuro) melanin which is essential for its operation.”

She asserted that “Black infants sit, stand, crawl and walk sooner than Whites,” and claimed that melanin “gives Blacks their superior physical and mental abilities.”

Additionally, Clarke wrote that “melanin endows Blacks with greater mental, physical and spiritual abilities — something which cannot be measured based on Eurocentric standards.”

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“Kristen Clarke is Joe Biden’s pick to run the Justice Department’s enormously powerful civil rights division. Clarke says her job is simple, it’s to end hate,” reported Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, whose team unearthed the 1994 letter. “But like so many in her world, Clarke is in fact an enthusiastic purveyor of what she claims to fight.”

Tucker Carlson reveals a letter to the editor on “black and white genetics” written by Joe Biden’s pick for Assistant AG for Civil Rights Kristen Clark written while she was at Harvard.

She also praised anti-Semite Tony Martin and invited him to speak at Harvard. pic.twitter.com/umGydmchBa

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) January 12, 2021

Biden’s transition team lauded Clarke’s work as a federal prosecutor, responsible for cases of police misconduct, voting rights, hate crimes, and human trafficking. 

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Clarke currently serves as the president and executive director of the National Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, also known as the Lawyers’ Committee. She has experience working at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

The United States Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division exists to “uphold the civil and constitutional rights of all Americans,” particularly with respect to “race, color, sex, disability, religion, familial status and national origin.”

When asked by Campus Reform about the implications of Clarke’s appointment for college campuses, Chance Layton — Director of Communications for the National Association of Scholars — explained that “Kristen Clarke, by all accounts, will do nothing to stop the Woke’s push to reinstitute racial segregation on campus.” 

National Association of Scholars Director of Research David Randall explained that “Kristen Clarke has stated that ‘systemic racism that pervades every aspect of our lives, especially when it comes to policing and the operation of the criminal justice system of our country.’” 

“The false ideology of ‘systemic racism’ presumes irremediable bad faith on the part of the nation’s citizens,” explained Randall. “To place a component of the Department of Justice in the hands of someone who believes in ‘systemic racism’ is to remake the Department of Justice into an agency that presumes irremediable bad faith on the part of the nation’s citizens. The nation’s citizens therefore may justly presume the irremediable bad faith of the Department of Justice in all areas in which it acts — including, of course, higher education.”

Randall added that “United States Senators certainly should raise the question of Clarke’s college-age comments during her confirmation hearing, to elucidate what precisely she meant, whether she still holds those views, and whether they have informed her current views on ‘systemic racism.’” 

However, “it is her current embrace of the illiberal, discriminatory ‘systemic racism’ ideology that should disqualify Clarke from any position in government, not her words a generation ago as a college student.”

Richard Vedder — a distinguished professor of economics at Ohio University and fellow with the Independent Institute — told Campus Reform that there is a double standard about political figures on the left and right recanting their former views.

“One sometimes would take the view that what one did when one was young… as a college student may reflect immaturity… and the person at age, say, 45, was different from the person at age 20,” remarked Vedder. However, he recalled that members of the Democratic majority argued that accusations against then-teenaged Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh — which were never substantiated — unequivocally disqualified him from office.

Vedder added that he worries about a “reversal” of President Donald Trump’s accomplishments in the higher education space, and notes that Clarke’s resurfaced comments may be a thorn in the side to the Biden administration.

Campus Reform reached out to the Biden-Harris transition team for comment; this article will be updated accordingly.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @BenZeisloft