Diane Coleman J.D., M.B.A.

Diane Coleman obtained her law degree and Masters in Business Administration from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1981 and worked as an attorney for the State of California for seven years.  During this time, she also served as a member of the California Attorney General's Commission on Disability.  Relocating to Tennessee in 1989, she became Co-Director of the Technology Access Center of Middle Tennessee and served as Policy Analyst for the Tennessee Technology Access Project, funded through the National Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research.  She served on the Tennessee Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and the Advisory Committee to the Tennessee Human Rights Commission.  Ms. Coleman is currently the Executive Director of the Progress Center for Independent Living in Forest Park, Illinois, a non-profit non-residential consumer-directed center advocating on behalf of people with disabilities.  She currently serves as a member of the Illinois State Medicaid Advisory Committee, the Illinois Medicaid Buy-In Advisory Committee, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Illinois Campaign for Better Health Care.

Ms. Coleman is a person with Spinal Muscular Atrophy who has used a motorized wheelchair since the age of eleven.  Since 1982, she has served on the boards of various national, state and local disability-related organizations and policy-related committees, has authored numerous articles on disability-related topics and spoken extensively on topics pertaining to disability rights and health care issues.  Since 1987, she has worked as an organizer for the American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT).  She has been arrested over 30 times in connection with peaceful disability rights protests.  Like many disability rights activists, she objects to the use of words such as "courage" and "inspiration" to refers to people with disabilities because these terms reinforce the attitude that the solution to disability oppression is in the individual's characteristics rather than in fundamental social change.

In April, 1996, she founded Not Dead Yet, a national grassroots disability rights organization opposing the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia.  She has twice presented invited testimony before the Constitution Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives (April 29, 1996 and July 14, 1998) as well as the Illinois Legislature on the topic of assisted suicide.  Ms. Coleman is a well-known writer and speaker on assisted suicide and euthanasia, and has appeared on Nightline, McLaughlin, The Rolanda Show, The Charles Grodin Show, CBS Up To The Minute, ABC World News Tonight, CNN and Court TV.  She co-authored the Amicus Brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Not Dead Yet and ADAPT in the matter of Vacco vs. Quill.

Following is the Contact Information if you would like to get more information or ask questions:

Diane Coleman, J.D., M.B.A.

President

Not Dead Yet

7521 Madison Street

Forest Park, IL 60130

(708) 209-1500

FAX (708) 209-1735

Email: ndycoleman@aol.com

website: www.notdeadyet.org