OP/ED: Why The Senate Needs To Confirm Kristen Clarke Now

This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee will lastly vote on the nomination of Kristen Clarke for Assistant Legal professional Basic for Civil Rights on the Department of Justice. The Committee ought to ship a powerful bipartisan vote for this imminently certified nominee to this vital publish, after which the total Senate ought to instantly vote to verify her by a large margin.

As vital as senior management is to the Justice Division, the nation wants its prime civil rights regulation enforcement officer, and we want her now. 

Ms. Clarke’s nomination has been pending for 4 months. She is the final of the 4 Division of Justice nominations introduced by President Joe  Biden in early January at a ceremony in Delaware. Legal professional Basic Merrick Garland, Deputy Legal professional Basic Lisa Monaco and Affiliate Legal professional Basic Vanita Gupta have all been confirmed by the Senate with Republican assist.

RELATED: 5 Things To Know About Incoming Attorney General Merrick Garland

Greater than another time in latest historical past, we face immense challenges round racial justice. Police violence continues to take the lives of Black People. Home terrorism rooted in white supremacy represents our biggest inside risk. Hate crimes are growing in each frequency and depth. The identical forces galvanized by the violent problem to the presidential election outcomes are fomenting a brand new wave of voter suppression in legislatures all around the nation. On prime of every part else, we’re nonetheless fighting the devastating racial impacts of a pandemic now in its second 12 months.

The work of the Civil Rights Division has by no means been extra vital, and who leads the Division issues enormously. Kristen Clarke will make historical past when she is lastly confirmed. Though the Civil Rights Division was created in 1957, the Senate has by no means confirmed a lady to function Assistant Legal professional Basic for Civil Rights.

Because the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, Ms. Clarke could be the primary Black lady and solely the fourth Black American confirmed to steer the Division in 64 years. Importantly, she would carry her background and private experiences to the job. 

She grew up in one of many nation’s largest public housing complexes—Starrett City in Brooklyn—which turned the topic of an NAACP lawsuit for its discriminatory practices. A scholarship program in center faculty allowed her to attend a prime prep faculty the place she attended a listening to in a well-known faculty desegregation case, lighting a spark that led to her civil rights profession.    

RELATED: Biden-Harris Administration Rolling Out Plan To Address Racial Equity

Kristen Clarke will even make historical past as the most effective credentialed attorneys ever to be appointed to the place. A graduate of Harvard College and Columbia Regulation College, Ms. Clarke has devoted her complete profession to safeguarding the rights of the varied communities protected by our nation’s civil rights legal guidelines. She is likely one of the nation’s most revered civil rights leaders and extensively considered a formidable litigator. The depth and breadth of her civil rights expertise has meant she has litigated or supervised litigation in each substantive space by which the Civil Rights Division is engaged.

As a testomony to her long-held perception that civil rights are by no means partisan, Ms. Clarke spent her first years as a lawyer working within the Civil Rights Division in the course of the administration of President George W. Bush. The in depth assist her nomination now enjoys from attorneys and public servants on either side of the political aisle is a credit score to her laser-like give attention to implementing civil rights to the fullest extent of the regulation.

Not solely does Ms. Clarke have in depth federal expertise, however she served for 4 years as Chief of the Civil Rights Bureau within the New York Legal professional Basic’s Workplace. She has held management positions with two nationwide civil rights litigating organizations. She headed the voting rights docket on the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, based by Thurgood Marshall, and at present serves as president and govt director of the Legal professionals’ Committee for Civil Rights Beneath Regulation, which enlists the personal bar across the nation to supply illustration to victims of discrimination.

Ms. Clarke is a civil rights chief for our time. 

Because the nation struggles to deal with lethal power by cops in opposition to the individuals of coloration they serve, Ms. Clarke brings expertise prosecuting police misconduct circumstances and huge acclaim from nationwide regulation enforcement organizations who know her as a bridge-builder. To counter the alarming increase in hate crimes, she brings experience in prosecuting these crimes and an extended file of combating hate-filled violence and bigotry. Because the nationwide wave of voter suppression grows even stronger, Ms. Clarke brings to the Division a whole profession of making certain full political participation for voters of coloration. As Legal professional Basic Garland said at his Senate listening to, he wants Kristen Clarke on his management group.

Our nation continues to be reeling from an absence of civil rights enforcement during the last 4 years. In the present day, we face a number of challenges on a bunch of fronts which threaten to impede our progress in reaching equal justice for all. We want Kristen Clarke on the helm of the Civil Rights Division to information the nation ahead. The Senate should take up her nomination shortly and vote to verify her by an amazing margin. Our nation urgently wants its first Black lady within the job.  

Karen Boykin-Cities serves because the Vice Chair of the NAACP Board of Administrators, the oldest and largest non-partisan civil rights group within the nation. Since concluding a formidable 22-year profession at Pfizer Inc, she now serves as President/CEO of Encore Methods, LLC.  Dr. Hazel N. Dukes is President of the NAACP New York State Convention and a member of the NAACP Nationwide Board of Administrators, a member of the NAACP Govt Committee and nicely as an energetic member of varied NAACP board sub-committees.  L. Pleasure Williams at present serves because the President of the Brooklyn NAACP, probably the most generational numerous branches within the nation. Drawing upon her in depth profession in politics, authorities and neighborhood work L. Pleasure believes in empowering communities with the data and expertise to be energetic individuals in democracy.