PERSON: Tiffany Wright

The Johns Hopkins University

Deputy General Counsel

Tiffany R. Wright directs the Civil Rights Clinic at Howard University School of Law. She is an accomplished appellate lawyer who specializes in civil rights. Ms. Wright was one of the lead attorneys and primary drafters of the petition in Taylor v. Riojas (2020), where the U.S. Supreme Court—for just the third time in history—summarily reversed the grant of qualified immunity to prison guards who subjected an inmate to inhumane conditions. She was also lead counsel and presented oral argument in the Second Circuit in Uniformed Fire Officers’ Association v. DeBlasio (2021), where she defeated police unions’ effort to prevent disclosure of police misconduct records following the repeal of a New York law that had kept such records secret for decades. Ms. Wright briefed and argued People v. Silas (2021) on behalf of civil rights organizations in the California Court of Appeal, where the court vacated four double-homicide convictions due to the unconstitutional strike of a Black prospective juror on account of support for Black Lives Matter.

Ms. Wright is a former law clerk to Justice Sonia Sotomayor on the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge David S. Tatel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Royce C. Lamberth on the U.S. District Court for D.C. She is a magna cum laude graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center and earned her law degree while working full-time and raising a toddler. Ms. Wright’s life and work have been featured in the Washington Post, C-SPAN, and USA Today.

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