Tish Gotell Faulks

LaTisha “Tish” Gotell Faulks is an attorney, advocate, and educator passionate about motivating the United States to fulfill its promise of empowering the People to self-govern. Tish is the State Courts Director with the Justice Team. In this role, she will continue the essential work of supporting coalitions and facilitating AFJ/AFJ Action’s efforts in state supreme courts.Tish graduated from Columbia College in Columbia, South Carolina, and attended the “People’s Electric Law School” at Rutgers Law School in Newark, New Jersey. She quickly discovered her passion for the law as a means to advocate for and protect the People. Tish honed her advocacy and litigation skills as a judicial advisor, first serving as an elbow law clerk in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey for the Honorable Joseph A. Greenaway, Jr. (USCJ)(retired) and later as a term staff attorney in the Office of Staff Counsel for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. In those roles, Tish worked closely with federal judges, offering legal research and writing support while advising them on matters suitable for oral argument before three-judge panels.After several years in complex commercial litigation and working for the judiciary, Tish realized her dream of returning to law school, this time to teach constitutional law (Separation of Powers and Civil Rights/Civil Liberties) at opportunity law schools in Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia. Through that experience, she developed her mission to educate and empower law students (and, by extension, their communities) to engage with the challenging questions of this experiment known as the United States.Tish became the ACLU of Alabama’s first Black legal director in April 2020. There, she provided public education, legal advocacy, thought leadership, and collaborative capacity building throughout Alabama. Tish spearheaded the development of the ACLU of Alabama’s voter protection program. In partnership with national and Alabama-based organizations, she and her team addressed the needs of hundreds of Alabama voters seeking assistance during the 2020 and 2022 primary and general election cycles. Tish’s team also negotiated innovative and effective policies to encourage voter turnout during the 2020 election cycle, epitomized by the case of People First v. Merrill. Ultimately, she and her team triumphed over ongoing efforts to undermine the Voting Rights Act in the landmark Supreme Court case of Allen v. Milligan. As a result of that litigation, a three-judge panel mandated remedial maps that established a second majority-minority congressional district in Alabama. When the legislature failed to comply with the rule of law and adopt constitutional maps, the panel appointed a special master to bring Alabama into compliance with the law, as reaffirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Milligan.