Art Coleman is a Founding Partner of EducationCounsel LLC, where he provides policy, strategic, and legal counseling services to national non-profit organizations, postsecondary institutions, school districts, and state agencies throughout the country. As a national leader on issues of student and faculty diversity, equity and inclusion, Mr. Coleman supports national non-profit organizations and higher education institutions in their efforts to advance DEI aims in legally sustainable ways, with a focus on mission-aligned objectives and principles of innovation.
Mr. Coleman previously served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, where, in the 1990s, he led the Department’s development of the Department’s Title VI policy on race-conscious financial aid, as well as OCR’s first comprehensive Title IX sexual harassment policy guidance.
Mr. Coleman was instrumental in the establishment of the College Board’s Access and Diversity Collaborative (ADC) in 2004, which he has helped lead since its inception. He has authored amicus briefs in major U.S. Supreme Court cases, including: Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger (2003); in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (2013 and 2016); and in SFFA v. Harvard and UNC (2023). His advocacy work also includes the development of a federal amicus strategy and numerous briefs on behalf of transgender students who successfully litigated federal court claims throughout the United States.
Mr. Coleman is currently an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education, where he teaches a masters level course on enrollment management law and policy. In 2022, he received the Rossier School’s Adjunct Faculty Teaching Award, with the recognition that he is “one of the nation’s leading legal voices supporting access, diversity and inclusion.”
A former litigator, Mr. Coleman is a 1984 honors graduate of Duke University School of Law and a 1981 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Virginia. He has testified before the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He is member of the Board of Directors of the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA); and a past chairman of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Higher Education Policy. He is also a past member of the Boards of Directors of GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network); and the Lab School of Washington, which serves students with learning differences.