NAACP’s Latest Hire Reveals the Left’s Plan to Keep Weaponizing Civil Rights Law Against Conservatives

After a years-long legal battle, the Supreme Court vindicated a Colorado Christian baker hounded by a “Civil Rights Commission” for the sin of refusing to craft a custom cake to celebrate a same-sex wedding. A woman by the name of Kristen Clarke found that ruling “devastating.”

Clarke, who would go on to lead the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division under President Joe Biden, arguably grew to embody the weaponization of civil rights law against conservatives. Yet on Wednesday, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People hailed Clarke as a “civil rights giant” in announcing her new position as NAACP general counsel.

NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said Clarke’s “record of fearless advocacy, leadership, and deep commitment to justice makes her the ideal general counsel to help chart our path forward.”

What, exactly, would shake the NAACP’s faith in Clarke’s “commitment to justice”? Would the NAACP reconsider if, hypothetically, Clarke had weaponized civil rights law against pro-life protesters, or worked closely with an anti-Christian smear factory, or twisted civil rights law to enforce transgender orthodoxy? Would this storied civil rights institution reconsider hiring her if, let’s say, she sliced open her husband’s hand in 2006 and then lied to cover it up in her Senate confirmation hearings?

Weaponizing Civil Rights on Abortion

After the Supreme Court’s opinion reversing Roe v. Wade (1973) leaked in May 2022, pro-abortion vandals targeted at least 95 pro-life pregnancy centers and 303 Catholic churches. While the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act protects access to both abortion centers and pro-life pregnancy centers, Clarke’s division brought zero FACE Act charges against pro-abortion vandals in 2022 and only four against them in 2023. By contrast, the division charged 26 pro-lifers in 2022 alone.

These cases notably included Catholic pro-life dad Mark Houck, who had allegedly pushed a pro-abortion activist who had been harassing his son. A jury found him not guilty.

A former DOJ official told The Daily Signal that Clarke’s division appeared to be “using the FACE Act to intimidate the pro-life population of the country.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center

Clarke and her Civil Rights Division cultivated a close relationship with the Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left smear factory that puts mainstream conservative and Christian groups on a “hate map” with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, effectively for the sin of disagreeing with the SPLC’s leftist agenda.

The SPLC pushes transgender orthodoxy, and demonizes those who oppose it as “anti-LGBTQ hate groups.” Its education program champions critical race theory (the narrative that America is systemically racist) while the SPLC puts parental rights groups like Moms for Liberty on the “hate map.” The SPLC has suggested the Catechism of the Catholic Church is a hateful document and has effectively admitted that critics were right to call it “anti-Christian.”

In 2012, a since-convicted terrorist told the FBI he used the SPLC “hate map” to target the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. While the SPLC condemned the attack, it has yet to remove the council from the map.

Amid a racial discrimination and sexual harassment scandal that saw the firing of its co-founder, SPLC staff formed a union. When the SPLC announced layoffs in 2024, the union accused the center of union-busting. The SPLC paid a $3.375 million defamation settlement to a Muslim reformer it had called an “anti-Islamic extremist.”

Despite all this, Clarke sought advice on “civil rights matters” from then-SPLC President Margaret Huang. Huang would brag to donors that the administration reached out for advice on countering “the domestic terrorism threat.” Clarke’s division swapped embargoed reports with the SPLC, and staff from the leftist group joined “Quarterly Civil Rights Meetings.” An SPLC staffer briefed DOJ prosecutors in 2023.

Transgender Orthodoxy

When states passed laws seeking to protect minors from the lifelong effects of experimental “treatments” to make male bodies resemble female bodies or vice versa, Clarke sent a letter to various states suggesting that such commonsense measures may violate federal civil rights law.

Her division also misapplied the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020). While the ruling narrowly applied to Title VII of federal civil rights law, Clarke’s division applied it to other parts of federal law to push transgender orthodoxy.

A Domestic Dispute

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, questioned Clarke’s “commitment to justice” when he accused her of lying under oath in her Senate confirmation hearings.

As my former colleague Mary Margaret Olohan reported, documents indicated Clarke had been arrested for attacking her then-husband, Reginald Avery, with a knife, deeply slicing his finger to the bone in 2006. The pair finalized their divorce in 2009. Clarke had the arrest expunged from her record, and during her Senate confirmation, she denied ever having been arrested or having been accused of committing a violent crime.

Back to the Baker

When Kristen Clarke took the side of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission against baker Jack Phillips, she revealed the sort of weaponization she’d bring to the Civil Rights Division. In fact, she went on to co-sign a brief against Lorie Smith, a Christian web designer who refused to create websites for same-sex weddings.

Clarke isn’t the old-fashioned live-and-let-live liberal. Instead, she uses civil rights law to force her ideology on others. The NAACP’s decision to hire her suggests the Left isn’t reconsidering this strategy.

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