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.
State Attorneys General Open Major Investigations of Big For-Profit Colleges
In tomorrow’s State of the Union address, President Obama will likely revisit his plans to hold America’s colleges and universities more accountable for helping U.S. students train for real careers. But while a stalemated Congress still blocks progress in many areas, a bipartisan group of state attorneys general just took a major step to help
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Media for Sale: Coal Lobby Buys Politico, Real Clear Politics Events
Last week, the political news website Real Clear Politics hosted a Washington DC event (video) targeted at an elite media and policy audience. Held at the gleaming Newseum, site of many such events, it was entitled, “U.S. Energy Policy: The Road Ahead,” and appeared to be a genuine policy discussion. It was, in fact, an infomercial.
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President Obama’s Chemical Safety Panel Must Heed Senator Obama’s Warnings
In the wake of the April 2103 West, Texas, chemical plant explosion, which killed 15 people and injured 160 more, President Obama issued an executive order directing federal agencies to improve the safety of our industrial chemical plants. Right now, a working group of federal officials is conducting “listening sessions” around the country to hear
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Miller Retirement Could Make Andrews, For-Profit Colleges’ Best Friend, Top Dem on Education
Twenty-term California Democratic Congressman George Miller informed his staff today that he is retiring. Miller deserves credit for a long record of public service. Among many other things, this development could have implications for the long struggle by the Obama Administration to hold the for-profit college industry accountable for deceit and abuse of students and
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Daily Caller, Once Rabid Protector of For-Profit Colleges, Attacks School Tied to Clintons
The Daily Caller, a conservative web publication, devoted much space in recent years to attacks on critics of America’s for-profit colleges, echoing claims made by for-profit college owners at a time when that controversial industry has been seeking to avoid accountability for its well-documented abuses of students and taxpayers. Yet now the Tucker Carlson-edited website
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House Dems Backing For-Profit Colleges Gutted Their Own Letter
Thirty House Democrats ended up signing a letter to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan that was organized at the behest of the for-profit college industry. The prime movers of the letter, Representatives Alcee Hastings (FL) and Rob Andrews (NJ), both are regular recipients of campaign cash from this industry. But the industry did not get
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Corruption Threatens Obama Action on For-Profit Colleges
In the past five years Americans have become increasingly aware that many for-profit colleges — the career training schools that advertise all over TV, the Internet, and city buses — are engaged in systematic fraud. These schools have been caught luring students with false promises about the cost of programs and the value of degrees
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Obama Team Must Be Fair, but Tough, on For-Profit Colleges
This morning the U.S. Department of Education convenes what may finally be the last session of its negotiated rulemaking on a proposed “gainful employment” rule, a measure aimed at cutting off federal aid to career college programs that fail to train students to earn a decent living. The latest draft regulation from the Department would
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