She attended Choate Rosemary Hall, where she was the only girl to join the boys’ wrestling squad.
Tucker Carlson and Fox News revealed a letter Clarke wrote to The Harvard Crimson as an undergraduate claiming that Blacks had “superior physical and mental abilities” due to their higher levels of melanin. Clarke said that the article was supposed to be a satirical statement about “fighting one ridiculous absurd racist theory with another ridiculous absurd theory.” A fact-check by Newsweek quoted her article as saying it was “in response to those who defend The Bell Curve,” however the fact-check concluded the article didn’t state that it was not serious. Former presidents of Harvard’s Black Students Association defended Clarke for considering Melanin theory worthy of inquiry.