Students who harbor qualms about abortion may want to avoid Kristen Clarke’s class at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.
The former Justice Department official who oversaw the prosecutions of more than 30 activists for protesting at abortion clinics landed a prestigious gig at the Ivy League law school this semester, teaching its Federal Civil Rights Law Bootcamp course.
“I look forward to working with students and faculty, inside and outside the classroom, to help equip future lawyers with the tools necessary to address modern-day discrimination and other 21st-century challenges,” said Ms. Clarke in a Feb. 10 press release, as flagged by The College Fix.
The university lauded Ms. Clarke for her work at the Justice Department, saying that she led “broad federal civil rights enforcement efforts and worked to uphold the civil and constitutional rights of all Americans.”
“Kristen brings deep expertise in civil rights law, and a career defined by commitments to equal justice and to service,” said law professor Sophia Z. Lee in a statement.
The praise comes in sharp contrast to Ms. Clarke’s reputation among conservatives, who accused her of weaponizing the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act to target the administration’s political foes, some of whom wound up in prison.
Kristi Hamrick, Students for Life of America spokesperson, said it was “very clear during the Biden-Harris reign that justice was not blind, but in fact, was politically woke.”
“People were prosecuted too often not for what they did, but for how they think and even for whom they might have voted for, which truly creates distrust in government,” she said in an email. “Penn makes a mistake in choosing Kristen Clarke to teach on civil rights, when you consider that her track record included so much viewpoint discrimination.”
Ms. Clarke is also conducting research on “racial justice and civil rights” during the spring semester at Howard University School of Law.
The conservative blog Legal Insurrection observed: “This is a reminder that higher education is where Democrats go when they’re between government jobs.”
Three days after taking office, President Trump pardoned 23 pro-life activists convicted during the Biden administration for FACE Act violations, saying that “[t]hey should not have been prosecuted.”
Those brought up on charges under Ms. Clarke included Lauren Handy, who was sentenced to 57 months in prison for leading a 2020 protest outside an abortion clinic in Washington, D.C., and Bevelyn Williams, who received 41 months for her involvement in a 2020 demonstration at an abortion facility in Manhattan.
The FACE Act bans the use of force, threats or physical obstruction to prevent access to reproductive-health facilities, which includes pro-life pregnancy centers.
Even so, only four pro-choice activists were charged during the Biden administration, despite 96 attacks on pro-life facilities after the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade, as per the CatholicVote tracker.
Before her Senate confirmation in 2021, Ms. Clarke was known for her left-wing hot takes on social media, including a 2018 post blasting the Alliance Defending Freedom as an “anti-LGBTQ hate group.”
After a California court struck down a disclosure requirement for pro-life pregnancy centers in 2018, she tweeted that the “anti-choice movement will stop at nothing,” adding the hashtag #ExposeFakeClinics, as first reported by the Washington Free Beacon.
Last month, the Daily Signal reported that emails obtained by American First Legal through open-records requests showed that Ms. Clarke was scheduled to meet in March 2023 with leaders of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a leftist group known for tarring conservative organizations on its “hate map.”
Last year, Ms. Clarke faced calls to resign from Republicans for testifying during her confirmation hearings that she had never been arrested. In fact, she was arrested in 2006 after she attacked her then-husband Reginald Avery with a knife.
He told the Daily Signal that she sliced his finger “to the bone” after he admitted he was cheating on her. The charges were dropped and the arrest later expunged from her record.
Ms. Clarke told CNN that she suffered “years-long abuse and domestic violence at the hands of my ex-husband.”
