Art Coleman is Managing Partner and Co-Founder of EducationCounsel LLC. He provides policy, strategic, and legal counseling services to national non-profit organizations, school districts, state agencies, and postsecondary institutions throughout the country, where he addresses issues associated with: student access, diversity, inclusion, expression, and success; faculty diversity, inclusion and expression; and institutional accountability and accreditation.
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. With a focus on issues of diversity and inclusion, he has authored amicus briefs in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), Gratz v. Bollinger (2003), and in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (I and II, 2013 and 2016). His advocacy work also includes the development of a federal amicus strategy and numerous briefs on behalf of transgender students in federal court litigation throughout the United States.
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 a member of the Board of Directors of GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network); the Lab School of Washington, which serves students with learning differences; 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.
Mr. Coleman is currently an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education, where he teaches a course on enrollment management law and policy.
Maya Kobersy is Associate General Counsel at University of Michigan. Her primary practice areas include affirmative action and diversity, election law, privacy, research and research misconduct, University logo issues, and in-state tuition guidelines for students. Maya is the OGC liaison to the Institutional Review Board-Health Sciences and Behavioral Sciences. She also serves on a number of university committees and is an active member of the National Association of College and University Attorneys. She has presented at University, state, and national conferences on issues relating to diversity, human subjects research, election law, Title IX, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, and employment compensation, among other topics.
Prior to joining the Office of the Vice President and General Counsel in 2005, Maya worked in the Education Group of Hogan & Hartson, L.L.P. (now Hogan Lovells), where she advised clients on numerous K-12, higher education, and civil rights issues. She received her B.A. from the University of Michigan and her J.D. from Harvard Law School, where she was an Executive Editor of the Harvard Law Review and a finalist and oralist in the Ames Moot Court Competition. In recognition of her work to help ensure that Americans with limited English proficiency have meaningful access to federal and federally funded programs, Maya received the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund’s Excellence in the Legal Profession Award in 2002 and the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium’s Distinguished Service Award in 2003.
Caroline Laguerre-Brown serves as the Vice Provost for Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement at George Washington University. Caroline directs GW’s efforts to advance diversity and inclusion throughout the university and oversees the Honey W. Nashman Center for Civic Engagement and Public Service, the Office of Disability Support Services, the Multicultural Student Services Center and the Title IX Office.
Prior to joining the George Washington University in August 2016, Caroline previously served as the Vice Provost and Chief Diversity Officer at Johns Hopkins University where she developed their first university-wide sexual harassment prevention training initiative, spearheaded unconscious bias training for faculty search committees, launched a Race in America speaker series and co-developed a comprehensive faculty diversity initiative. Prior to joining Johns Hopkins, she held positions as labor and employment defense counsel for the New York City Transit Authority and as assistant director of the Equal Employment Opportunity Office for the Fire Department of New York. She also served as staff counsel to the Equal Employment Advisory Council in Washington, D.C.
Caroline is a graduate of the State University of New York at Binghamton and the University of Virginia School of Law.