Derrell Coleman

Derrell Coleman is an education attorney and public school administrator who has served as Chief of Staff and General Counsel for Terrell Independent School District in Texas. His public work centers on school leadership, education law, human resources, and student services, and he has also held legal or HR leadership roles with Dallas ISD, the Texas Education Agency, and education law firms.

The Declaration’s Promise Now Depends on Political Reform and Shared Symbols

At the Aspen Ideas Festival session “General Assembly: The Idea of America,” Danielle Allen, Martha Jones, Shilo Brooks and Reihan Salam treated the Declaration of Independence as a living inheritance whose authority now depends on more than anniversary reverence. Their shared dispute was over what must sustain its claim of equality in a changed country: Allen emphasized institutional reform and democratic accountability, Jones insisted on confronting slavery, citizenship and present contradictions, Shilo Brooks stressed the moral and philosophical force behind equality, and Salam argued that a credal nation still needs a culture capable of carrying shared symbols across demographic change.

The Aspen InstituteJun 30, 202621 min read