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.
$33 Million Per Year of Your Tax Money To For-Profit College Whose CEO Hid Criminal Record
On Friday, prosecutors in Miami charged the politically-connected CEO of for-profit Dade Medical College, Ernesto Perez, with the felony charge of providing false information through a sworn statement, plus two misdemeanor counts of perjury. When Perez was named to Florida’s Commission on Independent Education — a panel charged with overseeing schools like his — he omitted
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Who Wrote the For-Profit College Group Handbook Urging Members Not To Lie to Students?
The lobbying group of for-profit colleges, APSCU, today released a report, “Best Practices in Recruitment and Admissions.” State and federal authorities, and private lawyers, have been investigating for-profit colleges, and winning settlements, arbitrations, and jury verdicts in cases where recruiters used coercive tactics and made false promises to prospective students about college costs, job placement rates,
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Charged With Protecting Students, Congressman Kline Instead Serves For-Profit Colleges
Representative John Kline, Republican of Minnesota, chairs the House Education and the Workforce Committee. He also is a living symbol of the Republican Party’s shameful loyalty to big for-profit colleges that have added to the corruption of U.S. politics, systematically ripped off taxpayers, and ruined the futures of countless students. On Friday, Rep. Kline will
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Obama Can and Must Act Now On Chemical Plant Safety
What connects all of these terrible events – the 1984 pesticide plant disaster at Bhopal, India, which caused 20,000 deaths; the Sept. 11, 2001, Al Qaeda attacks on the U.S.; and the recent deadly chemical plant explosions in West, Texas, and Geismar, Louisiana? What connects these events is the looming danger of a massive terrorist
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Who Owns The Awful Corinthian Colleges? Wells Fargo, Marc Morial, Pension Funds
Last Thursday, California’s attorney general, Kamala Harris, sued Corinthian Colleges, one of the country’s biggest — and worst — for-profit college companies, for “false and predatory advertising, intentional misrepresentations to students, securities fraud and unlawful use of military seals in advertisements.” Harris’s lawsuit claims that Corinthian, which operates the schools Heald, Everest, and Wyotech, deceived prospective students, investors, and
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More Trouble for For-Profit Colleges: They Can’t Keep Calling Your Cell
The for-profit college industry is under pressure. Many of its biggest companies are being investigated by federal agencies and state attorneys general for fraud and misrepresentation — deceiving students, regulators, and investors about job placement rates, costs and quality of programs, transferability of credits, and other matters. Enrollments are down, and share prices have been
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Discredited For-Profit College Operator Still Part of APSCU Trade Group
The Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, or APSCU, is the Washington, DC-based lobbying group for America’s for-profit colleges. APSCU has opposed a wide range of reasonable efforts by the Obama Administration and Members of Congress to hold bad actors in its industry accountable for waste, fraud, and abuse with the roughly $32 billion
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Arne Duncan’s Last Best Chance to Save Students from Abusive For-Profit Colleges
After several years of startling revelations about its predatory abuses of students, the for-profit college industry faces growing skepticism from the public. Thousands of students across the country have complained that they were deceived by for-profit college recruiters about the cost of programs, the quality of programs, and the value of for-profit degrees in the
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