Secretary William Coleman

October 22, 2008 - On Wednesday, October 22, Secretary William Thaddeus Coleman, Jr. delivered the Henry M. Scharf Memorial Lecture on Current Affairs at Gettysburg College and also met with a group of current international students to discuss world affairs.

Coleman's career has been marked with groundbreaking achievements in the legal, corporate, and government sectors. Coleman served in President Ford's Cabinet as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation from March of 1975 to January 20, 1977. He has served in advisory or consultant positions to six former U.S. Presidents, as well as the current president. Coleman co-authored of the legal briefs for Brown vs. the Board of Education which in 1954 persuaded the Supreme Court to outlaw racial segregation in public schools. Coleman has briefed and argued nineteen cases before the Supreme Court of the United States. He serves as Senior Director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., after serving as Chairman of the Board from 1977 to 1997.