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.
Independence U. Employee Got Threats After Speaking with U.S. Investigators
On April 27, 2021, Dorothy McCarty, a financial aid advisor at Independence University, an online career college, met via Zoom with investigators from the United States Department of Education to discuss what McCarty considered to be unethical abuses of students, largely low-income people, by the school, which was owned by the Utah-based non-profit Center for
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Facing Collapse, For-Profit ASA College Makes Troubling Moves
Faced with the increasing likelihood that it will be forced to shut down, New York-based for-profit ASA College has left students in turmoil, providing confusing messages about transfer options, refusing to refund tuition, adding new charges to student bills, and seeming to recruit and enroll new students even as it appears likely they will not
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Headhunter Sends Stark Robocall Seeking College Recruiting Chief
A recorded message sent from a corporate headhunter to various people in the for-profit college industry is getting attention from some industry members, because it is apparently an unusual use of so-called robocalling. The recording also presents in stark terms the kind of mercenary activity that is taking place with taxpayer-funded higher education dollars. In
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Feds Tell Accreditor SACS to Shape Up, Examine Keiser University
The U.S. Department of Education last month determined that one of the country’s major accreditors of colleges and universities is out of compliance with numerous federal regulations. It also directed the accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACS), to provide more information regarding its oversight of Florida-based Keiser University and
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Why Is Perdoceo’s Chairman Selling So Much Company Stock?
Todd Nelson, the executive chairman of Perdoceo Education Corp., one of America’s largest for-profit college companies, has sold a huge volume of his shares in the company in recent weeks — even as Perdoceo has been telling investors that things are going well. Nelson has frequently been featured on this website because of his outsized
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Troubled ASA College Loses Accreditation
Accreditor Middle States Commission on Higher Education has withdrawn accreditation from troubled for-profit ASA College. As a result, unless that decision is reversed on appeal, ASA will lose access to the federal student aid that has made up almost two-thirds of its revenue. In a letter dated November 11, Middle States told ASA that accreditation
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Keiser U Loses Court Argument Over Robocalls
A Florida federal judge last week rejected a motion by controversial career school Keiser University to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Maria Fernanda Soto Leigue, who says she was bombarded with messages from Keiser urging her to enroll – conduct that she claims violated Florida’s statute governing robocalls. The October 20 opinion by U.S. District
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ASA College Withdraws Bid to Stay Licensed in Florida
Troubled for-profit ASA College today told a Florida oversight agency that it is not seeking renewal of licensure for its Hialeah, Florida, campus, the only campus the company operates in the state. ASA’s president told a meeting of the Florida Commission on Independent Education (CIE) that the company plans to close the campus next spring
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