The Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) Clinic’s mandate is to support Muslim, Arab, South Asian, and all other communities in the New York City area and beyond that are targeted by local, state, or federal government agencies under the guise of national security and counterterrorism.

Our work is defined by our relationships with communities and movements whose members wish to shape and respond to law enforcement policies and practices affecting them. CLEAR’s community-oriented and movement-building approach combines free legal representation with other services directed at satisfying the fuller range of community concerns.

CLEAR provides three primary services free of charge: legal representation and consultation; know-your-rights workshops; and support for community organizing.

CLEAR is the only organization in the larger New York City area that systematically provides this range of support and services free of charge.

Faculty

  • Naz Ahmad
    Co-director of the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR)
    Naz Ahmad is Co-director of the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) project. CLEAR aims to address the unmet legal needs of Muslim and other communities in the New York City area and beyond that are particularly affected by national security and counterterrorism policies and practices. View full bio.
  • Ramzi Kassem
    Founding Director of CLEAR, Professor of Law
    Ramzi Kassem is a Professor of Law at the City University of New York, where he founded and co-directs CLEAR. His writing, teaching, and clinical legal practice grapple with the expressions and excesses of the sprawling U.S. security state. From 2022 to 2024, Professor Kassem served as a Senior Policy Advisor at the White House. He has argued constitutional, criminal, and national security cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, in the federal courts of appeals (including en banc) and district courts, at the Military Commission at Guantànamo Bay, and in immigration courts. Professor Kassem is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a Freedom Scholar. View Ramzi Kassem's full bio.
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