Kristen Clarke

Kristen Clarke was the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice. In this role, she led federal civil rights enforcement work across the country. Her work helps to safeguard the civil and constitutional rights of all Americans.

While leading civil rights enforcement at the Justice Department, she became known for high-profile civil rights convictions in cases involving the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tyre Nichols, and Ahmaud Arbery. She also led teams that handled hate crimes prosecutions tied to the Tree of Life Massacre in Pittsburg, the mass shooting of Latinos in El Paso, Texas, and the fatal shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs.

President Biden described her as “one of the most distinguished civil rights attorneys in America."

Clarke is a lifelong civil rights lawyer. She led the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, one of the nation’s leading civil rights organizations founded at the request of John F. Kennedy, worked for several years at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and also held a leadership role at the New York State Attorney General’s Office.

Clarke, born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, is the daughter of Jamaican immigrants. After graduating from Choate Rosemary Hall, she received her A.B. from Harvard University and her J.D. from Columbia Law School.