Tucker Carlson on Monday resurfaced controversial comments made by President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
The footage: On his eponymous Fox News show, Carlson introduced the “shocking” statements by Kristen Clarke, which were written in a letter to the editors of the Harvard Crimson in 1994.
Clarke, then president of Harvard’s Black Students Association, co-wrote the letter in response to those defending sociologist Charles Murray’s work “The Bell Curve,” which argues genetic factors influence intelligence.
- Among other scientific claims, Clarke wrote that “black infants sit, stand, crawl and walk sooner than whites” and that “human mental processes are controlled by melanin — that same chemical which gives Blacks their superior physical and mental abilities.”
- “Melanin endows Blacks with greater mental, physical and spiritual abilities — something which cannot be measured based on Eurocentric standards,” she wrote.
Carlson went on to note that Clarke tempered her statements after widespread campus outcry.
- However, as the Fox News host noted, she went on to invite Tony Martin, a Wellesley professor of African studies and author of “The Jewish Onslaught,” to speak on campus, sparking concerns surrounding purportedly anti-semitic content in Martin’s work.
Ready for her closeup: Biden announced Clarke’s nomination to Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice at a Thursday press conference.
- “We will turn the page on hate and close the door on discrimination by enforcing our federal civil rights laws,” she announced in her acceptance speech.
Clarke, who is currently president of the National Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, has been a vocal supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement and has called for partial defunding of police departments.
