About: David Halperin
Twitter: @DaHalperin
Bio: David Halperin is the co-founder and editor of Republic Report. Halperin, a self-employed lawyer based in Washington DC, engages in public advocacy, investigative work, and legal representation on a wide range of issues, including higher education, climate change, democracy, corruption, open government, and national security. He also advises organizations and companies on strategy, policy, communications, and legal matters. He is of counsel to Public.Resource.org, a non-profit focused on making legal and government materials available for free to the public.
Halperin’s investigative and advocacy work on predatory for-profit colleges since 2010 has spurred reforms in policy and regulations, triggered law enforcement investigations, and led to the closure of numerous deceptive schools.
Halperin was from 2004 until 2012 the founding director of Campus Progress and senior vice president at the Center for American Progress. Before that, he was: senior policy advisor for Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign; founding executive director of the American Constitution Society; White House speechwriter and special assistant for national security affairs to President Clinton; co-founder of the Internet company Progressive Networks (now called RealNetworks); counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee; law clerk to U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell (D.D.C.); research assistant to Robert S. McNamara; and research analyst at the Arms Control Association.
Halperin has represented clients in the U.S. Supreme Court and various state and federal courts. Among many other efforts, Halperin helped represent Greenpeace in an unprecedented 2004 Miami criminal jury trial over protest activity, resulting in a directed verdict of acquittal; aided climate groups facing investigation by the House Science Committee during 2015-16; and represented Public Resource in landmark copyright litigation from 2012 to 2024 over efforts to make federal regulations publicly available online without charge.
Halperin writes at Republic Report, and his articles also have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Nation, Politico, Slate, Foreign Policy, and other outlets. In recent years he has testified before the House Oversight Committee and at several federal agencies, and he has spoken at major conferences and events across the country. Halperin has served since 2007 on the board of directors of Public Citizen.
Halperin graduated from Yale College and Yale Law School.
Big Financial Companies Ratify Trump Abuse of Anti-Hate Group
There is a new development in the Trump administration’s ugly attack on nonprofit advocacy groups. Fidelity Charitable and Vanguard, two of the biggest sponsors of donor-advised funds (DAFs), on Wednesday blocked clients from using those DAFs to donate to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The action came after last week’s criminal indictment of the SPLC
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Education Secretary McMahon Appears at NC Event with “Michael Whatley for Senate”
A U.S. Department of Education press release today says that on Monday, “U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon joined Chairwoman Virginia Foxx and North Carolina native Michael Whatley in central North Carolina to champion the Education Freedom Tax Credit, passed in President Trump’s Working Families Tax Cuts.” At a press event Monday in High Point,
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Trump Is Weak On Protecting Americans From Overpriced, Deceptive Colleges
Last year, congressional Republicans finally accepted that it was really dumb for the government to keep providing billions of taxpayer dollars to send students to college programs that on average leave graduates worse off than when they start. After fifteen years of opposing the Obama-Biden gainful employment rule, which would have cut off federal aid
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Adtalem, Formerly DeVry, is Now Covista. Warning: Still Harmful to Students.
Big for-profit college operation Adtalem, a company whose schools have had a history of deceptive and predatory abuses against students and taxpayers, adopted its name in 2017, changing it from DeVry Education Group. Last week, the company rebranded again — to another, even more pharma-sounding name: Covista. But warning: Covista may cause side effects including
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Ex-Recruiter Sues For-Profit College Chain Perdoceo, Alleging Systematic Fraud
In a powerful legal complaint filed this month in federal court in Denver, Aidan Peters, a former admissions representative for Colorado Technical University (CTU), alleges that the for-profit, online school, owned by giant Perdoceo Education Corp., systematically deceived and abused students. One such student identified in the complaint is T.G., a woman who seemed to
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Trump’s Education Dept Cancelled $38 Million Fine Against Grand Canyon U, But School Just Paid $28 Million to Settle Separate Fraud Charges
Last spring, the Trump Department of Education quietly cancelled a $37.7 million fine against Grand Canyon University that resulted from a thorough investigation, during the Biden presidency, showing the school deceived numerous doctoral degree students regarding the costs of their programs. The Department falsely claimed that the Biden team persecuted Grand Canyon because the school
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Colorado Appeals Court Affirms That Carl Barney’s Colleges Scammed Students
Over the holidays, a shuttered chain of predatory career colleges operated by billionaire GOP donor Carl Barney continued its seemingly endless second life as a habitual courthouse litigant. On December 24, the Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed a $3 million penalty against one of Barney’s schools, CollegeAmerica, upholding a 2020 decision by a Colorado district
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The Trump Assault on Quality and Integrity in Higher Education
Here are remarks I offered today during the public comment segment of a meeting of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI): At the February meeting, I urged you to speak up in the face of an unprecedented attack on the quality and integrity of higher education by
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