The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) is a left-of-center public policy advocacy organization that focuses primarily on poverty and racial equity. ¹ Though self-described as “nonpartisan,” ² CLASP has staked out left-of-center stances on a number of issues, including race-based reparations, ³ LGBT-themed ⁴ for kindergarteners and grade-school students, ⁵ and the claim that white supremacy, racism, and hate are “pervading” the United States. ⁶

CLASP was originally founded in 1968 with the support of left-of-center activist and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader as a public interest law firm. ⁶ However, over time the organization has shifted to more explicitly focus on policy advocacy and activism, primarily about racial equity. ¹

Founding and History

Center for Law and Social Policy was founded in 1968 by four lawyers from the law firm Arnold and Porter as a public interest law firm. ⁷ Early supporters included left-wing activist and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who not only aided in designing and establishing CLASP, but was also an early client of its services. ⁷

An innovator in the field of public interest law, CLASP organized the first law school extern program to give law students credit for doing legal work outside of the classroom, partnering with top law schools like Yale, Stanford, and the University of Pennsylvania. ⁷ CLASP also formed entities that became their own independent organizations. For example, its Women’s Rights Project because the National Women’s Law Center in 1981. ⁸

Political Activism

Though presenting itself as a “national, nonpartisan, anti-poverty nonprofit,” Center for Law and Social Policy has staked out left-of-center positions on a variety of social issues. ⁹

CCLASP labeled attempts to prevent transgender-themed education to kindergarteners as “homophobic” and “transphobic,” adding that such legislation or other government actions are “tactics to uphold white supremacy.” ¹⁰

CLASP rejects the idea that abortions should be “safe, legal, and rare” and instead labels abortion an “essential health care service” and claims that restrictions on abortion put “women’s lives…at risk.” ¹¹

CLASP rejects the idea of racial equality, where all are treated equally under the law, and instead embraces the critical race theory-aligned idea of “racial equity,” which posits that inequalities are the direct result of white racism. CLASP has expressed the view that “poverty in America is inextricably tied to systemic racism” ¹² and that “from birth, Black children are subjected to the hate, racism, discrimination, and white supremacy pervading this nation.” ⁶ The organization deems opposition to critical race theory as “the latest version of tactics spanning centuries aimed at upholding white supremacy and racism” ¹³ and calls for “holistic and ongoing” reparations to African Americans. ¹⁴

CLASP supported the Affordable Care Act, ¹⁵ also known as Obamacare, and supported former President Joe Biden’s left-of-center Build Back Better agenda. ¹⁶

In October 2022, CLASP denounced the passage and implementation of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. The legislation increased school security in the wake of high-profile school shootings. The group claimed the legislation “provides significant investments in police presence in schools and other school-hardening mechanisms that have been shown to expose young people to violence and increase their likelihood of going through the school-to-prison pipeline.” The report claimed that the increased criminalization provisions in the legislation may be harmful to young people. The report the group issued claimed that increased police presence in schools and school hardening measures, “harm black and brown youth, poor youth, queer youth, trans youth, and youth with disabilities.” The report also claimed, “in a white supremacist society, true safety will remain elusive to folks who are Black and brown, queer, disabled, poor, and/or gender-oppressed when guided by racist, carceral frameworks.” The report called for defunding the police and diverting the money into new social programs. ¹⁷

In December 2022, CLASP praised the passage of an omnibus budget package but lamented that it did not include amnesty for illegal immigrants, larger increases in spending for social programs, and prohibitions on states disenrolling people from Medicaid. ¹⁸

In December 2023, CLASP published a report on alleged harms from deportation. The report was compiled with the help of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance and called deportation “an extreme action that causes lasting harm to everyone it touches.” ¹⁹

In September 2024, CLASP urged more spending on social programs as the poverty rate increased due to the end of temporary welfare programs enacted as a part of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. ²⁰

In September 2024, CLASP, along with the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice, wrote a report lamenting how abortion restrictions harmed immigrants. The report claimed, “Im/migrants, especially those who are undocumented and those in mixed-status families, are particularly vulnerable to the harmful impacts of abortion bans due to the barriers they face in accessing health care and the increased risk of criminalization based on immigration status. These barriers and risks include arbitrary Customs and Border Protection (CBP) checkpoints, a five-year waiting period for legal permanent residents to enroll in public health insurance programs, agreements between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities, and increasing anti-immigrant state policies.” The report called on Congress to pass a law creating a right to abortion regardless of immigration status. ²¹

In December 2024, CLASP denounced plans by the incoming Trump administration to expand the enforcement of immigration laws in places such as hospitals, child care centers, schools, and places of worship. The group denounced the expansion of immigration enforcement as, “a wider effort to instill fear in immigrant communities and deter parents from taking their child to the hospital or dropping them off at child care or school.” ²²

In February 2025, CLASP, along with A Better Balance, released a report advocating mandatory paid leave for young workers. The report claimed, “Young workers struggle, due to systemic racism, sexism, and adultism, when trying to take leave and maintain economic stability. Young workers are acutely aware of how systemic inequality affects their working lives. Our participants described how racism, sexism, and their status as young workers boxed them out of information and into low-quality jobs.” ²³

In March 2025, CLASP denounced layoffs at the U.S. Department of Education. The statement denounced Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency for its efforts to “operate the federal government like a private equity firm and unilaterally strip federal agencies of valuable people and resources will be ruinous to students, families, communities, and the economy.” The statement also claimed that schools would be unable to educate students without federal assistance and college students would be unable to access or receive financial aid. ²⁴

In March 2025, CLASP opposed an executive order by President Donald Trump which would shut down the U.S. Department of Education. While the group acknowledged that states hold the primary responsibility for education, the group claimed closing the department will, “disproportionately harm students of color and children with disabilities, instill fear in immigrant students, and reverse decades of progress in enhancing civil rights protections for all students.” The group also claimed that eliminating the Department of Education “deprives immigrant students, students of color, and students with disabilities of federal oversight to shield them from openly discriminatory state governments” and accused President Trump of resegregating education by race and class. ²⁵

In March 2025, CLASP opposed an executive order by President Trump which ended collective bargaining in numerous federal government agencies. ²⁶

In March 2025, CLASP opposed cuts at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The group claimed the cuts would affect “mental health, disabled people, rural communities, vaccines for children, and community health workers who address inequities for people across the lifespan, among others.” The group reemphasized its opposition to the renewal of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, claiming the tax cuts backed by the first Trump administration benefited only the wealthy and corporations, and to any further cuts in government spending. ²⁷

In March 2025, CLASP denounced the Trump administration for not allowing illegal immigrants who received the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) amnesty to buy subsidized health insurance through Obamacare exchanges. Originally, DACA recipients were not allowed to buy subsidized health insurance on the Obamacare exchanges, but an executive order in November 2024 by then-President Joe Biden changed that. The group claimed that removing the illegal immigrants from the Obamacare exchanges was an act of cruelty. ²⁸

Leadership

As of April 2025, Cemere James is CLASP’s interim executive director. She returned to the group from a previous stint in January 2025 and previously worked as the group’s deputy director of the Work Support Strategies initiative. Since 2022, James has been the founder and CEO of James Borden Consulting, a group that provides consulting on racial issues. Previously, she worked for the Children’s Defense Fund. ²⁹

Lisa Ellis is the interim chief operating officer. She previously worked as a COO for social and environmental groups. ³⁰

David Hansell is the board chair. He is the senior advisor for child welfare policy at Casey Family Programs. ³¹

Funding

As of CLASP’s 2023 tax returns, the group has $7,895,380 in revenue, $ 10,463,383 in expenses, and $17,156,981 in net assets. The group gave $50,000 to Blueprint North Carolina, $10,000 to Children At Risk, $25,000 to Community Organizing and Family Issues, $20,000 to the Maine People’s Resource Center, $50,000 to the Mississippi Low Income Child Care Initiative, $50,000 to Springboard to Opportunities, and $10,000 to the Children’s Partnership. ³²

CLASP receives substantial funding through donations from left-of-center individuals and non-profit foundations. In 2022, CLASP was the recipient of a grant form Mackenzie Scott, ³³ the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and a major supporter of left-wing organizations and political movements such as Black Lives Matter ³⁴ and Planned Parenthood. ³³

CLASP has also been the recipient of over $2.3 million from the MacArthur Foundation, the twelfth-largest foundation in the United States in 2014 that supports a large number of left-of-center causes. ³⁵

Other major donors to CLASP include Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust, which donated $1.4 million by 2020; Center for American Progress, which donated $816,042 in the same period; The Ford Foundation, which donated $1.1 million; Open Society Foundation, which donated $166,667; the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which donated $4,025,707; Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, which donated $1,050,000; and the W.K. Kellog Foundation, which donated $466,667.  ⁹

1. “Reducing Poverty, Promoting Economic Security & Advancing Racial Equity.” The Center for Law and Social Policy. Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.clasp.org/
2. Ibid.
3. Sullivan, Jacquelyn. “A Debt to be Paid: Reparation and a New Deal for Youth.” The Center for Law and Social Policy. August 9, 2021. Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.clasp.org/blog/debt-be-paid-reparations-and-new-deal-youth
4. “How Inn Helps Newsrooms Defend Press Freedom and Protect Journalists’ Safety .” Institute for Nonprofit News, February 7, 2025. https://inn.org/news/how-inn-helps-newsrooms-defend-press-freedom-and-protect-journalists-safety/.
5. Tawa, Kayla and Whitney Bunts. “How Queer Visibility Threatens White Power.” The Center for Law and Social Policy. March 31, 20222. Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.clasp.org/blog/how-queer-visibility-threatens-white-power
6. Ferrette, Tiffany and Whitney Bunts. “Mitigating the Criminalization of Black Children through Federal Relief. The Center for Law and Social Policy. February 22, 2022. Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.clasp.org/blog/mitigating-criminalization-black-children-through-federal-relief
7. “Center For Law And Social Policy.” Law Crossing. Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.lawcrossing.com/article/900045216/Center-for-Law-and-Social-Policy-CLASP/
8. “Marcia D. Greenberg, Co-President. National Women’s Law Center. Archived from July 11, 2015. Accessed April 22, 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20150711163112/http://www.nwlc.org/profile/marcia-greenberger
9. “Financial Statements: For the Year Ended December 21, 2020. The Center for Law and Social Policy. Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.clasp.org/sites/default/files/CLASP%202020%20FS%20%281%29.pdf
10. Tawa, Kayla and Whitney Bunts. “How Queer Visibility Threatens White Power.” The Center for Law and Social Policy. March 31, 2022.  Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.clasp.org/blog/how-queer-visibility-threatens-white-power
11. Andrews, Emily. “Women’s History in the Making: The Unequal Harm of Rolling Back Roe.” The Center for Law and Social Policy. March 24, 2022. Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.clasp.org/blog/women-s-history-making-unequal-harm-rolling-back-roe
12. “Advancing Racial Equity.” The Center for Law and Social Policy.” Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.clasp.org/about/racial-equity
13. Bunts, Whitney and Kayla Tawa. “How Abolishing Critical Race Theory Preserves White Power.” The Center for Law and Social Policy. February 10, 2022. Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.clasp.org/blog/how-abolishing-critical-race-theory-preserves-white-power
14. Sullivan, Jacquelyn. “A Debt to be Paid: Reparation and a New Deal for Youth.” Center for Law and Social Policy.  August 9, 2021. Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.clasp.org/blog/debt-be-paid-reparations-and-new-deal-youth
15. “Health and Mental Health.” The Center for Law and Social Policy. Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.clasp.org/issues/health-and-mental-health
16. “House Passage of Build Back Better Marks Historic Win.” The Center for Law and Social Policy. Accessed April 11, 2022 https://www.clasp.org/press-room/press-releases/house-passage-build-back-better-marks-historic-win
17. Bunts, Whitney, and Deanie Anyangwe. “Safer for Whom? The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act Does Not Actually Keep Communities Safe.” CLASP, October 26, 2022. https://www.clasp.org/blog/safer-for-whom-the-bipartisan-safer-communities-act-does-not-actually-keep-communities-safe/
18. “Omnibus Bill Advances Economic Opportunity and Social Justice, despite Key Omissions.” CLASP, December 22, 2022. https://www.clasp.org/press-room/press-releases/omnibus-bill-advances-economic-opportunity-and-social-justice-despite-key-omissions/
19. Setty, Suma, and Lynn Tramonte. “Issue Brief: Broken Hope: Deportation’s Harms and the Road Home.” CLASP, December 11, 2023. https://www.clasp.org/publications/report/brief/broken-hope-deportation-harm/.
20. Depillis, Lydia. “Poverty Increased in 2023 as Prices Rose and Pandemic Aid Programs Expired.” The New York Times, September 10, 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/10/business/economy/poverty-report-2023-census-bureau.html.
21. Andrews, Salen, Priya Pandey, Suma Setty, Hannah Liu, and Lucie Arvallo. “Deepening the Divide: Abortion Bans Further Harm Immigrant Communities (2024).” CLASP, September 17, 2024. https://www.clasp.org/publications/fact-sheet/deepening-divide-abortion-bans-harm-immigrants-2024/.
22. “Clasp Denounces Plans to Rescind Policy That Protects Schools, Hospitals and Places of Worship from Immigration Enforcement.” CLASP, December 13, 2024. https://www.clasp.org/press-room/press-releases/denounce-plans-rescind-policy-protect-basic-needs/.
23. Trice, Madison, Kathy Tran, Carmen McCoy, and Nat Baldino. “Young Workers Speak Out.” A Better Balance, February 11, 2025. https://www.abetterbalance.org/young-workers-speak-out/.
24. “Cuts to Department of Education Will Affect Millions of Students & Families.” CLASP, March 12, 2025. https://www.clasp.org/press-room/press-releases/cuts-to-department-of-education-will-affect-millions-of-students-families/
25. “Executive Order on Education Will Harm Children, Families, and the Economy.” CLASP, March 21, 2025. https://www.clasp.org/press-room/press-releases/executive-order-on-education-will-harm-children-families-and-the-economy/.
26. “Executive Order on Unions Is an Assault on More than One Million Workers.” CLASP, March 31, 2025. https://www.clasp.org/press-room/press-releases/executive-order-on-unions-is-an-assault-on-more-than-one-million-workers/.
27. “Latest Round of HHS Cuts Will Further Harm Children, Families & People with Low Incomes.” CLASP, March 28, 2025. https://www.clasp.org/press-room/press-releases/latest-round-of-hhs-cuts-will-further-harm-children-families-people-with-low-incomes/.
28. “Cutting off DACA Recipients from the ACA Is Latest Move Showcasing the Administration’s Cruelty.” CLASP, March 11, 2025. https://www.clasp.org/press-room/press-releases/cutting-off-daca-recipients-from-the-aca-is-latest-move-showcasing-the-administrations-cruelty/
29. “Cemeré James.” CLASP. Accessed April 7, 2025. https://www.clasp.org/profile/cemere-james/.
30.  “Lisa Ellis.” CLASP. Accessed April 7, 2025. https://www.clasp.org/profile/lisa-ellis/.
31.  “Board of Trustees.” CLASP. Accessed April 7, 2025. https://www.clasp.org/about/board-of-trustees/.
32. “Center for Law and Social Policy, Full Filing – Nonprofit Explorer.” ProPublica. Accessed April 7, 2025. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/237000150/202433209349319603/full.
33.  Scott, Mackenzie. “Helping Any of Us Can Help Us All.” Medium. March 23, 2022. Accessed April 11, 2022. https://mackenzie-scott.medium.com/helping-any-of-us-can-help-us-all-f4c7487818d9
34. “Mackenzie Bezos.” Influence Watch. Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.influencewatch.org/person/mackenzie-bezos/
35. Center for Law and Social Policy.” MacArthur Foundation. Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.macfound.org/grantee/center-for-law-and-social-policy-4472/