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.
Education Department Restricts Cash Flow to Florida Career College
The U.S. Department of Education has placed troubled for-profit Florida Career College (FCC) on Heightened Cash Monitoring 2 (HCM2), a restrictive status under which a school must request reimbursements from the Department for student financial aid, rather than getting payments in advance. The decision was recently made public through the Department’s quarterly filing of schools
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New York For-Profit College Fined For Deceptive Subway Ads
For-profit ASA College has agreed to pay $112,500 in penalties for deceptive ads displayed on New York City subway cars this year. The ads were exposed in a February article on Republic Report, thanks to photos sent to us by eagle-eyed straphangers, including staff of the New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG), a non-profit legal
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Biden EPA Is Failing To Protect Americans From Chemical Disasters
This week, a group of national security and environmental experts — including former EPA administrator and New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman, former OSHA head David Michaels, and retired Army generals Russel Honoré and Randy Manner — along with this author, sent a letter to Biden EPA director Michael Regan calling on the administration to
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For-Profit Stratford University Suddenly Shuts Down
For-profit college chain Stratford University, which has offered degree programs in nursing, business, and other career fields, announced Friday that it would close its remaining campuses, located in Woodbridge and Alexandria, Virginia, and Baltimore, Maryland, effective at the end of the current school term. By today, the school told students it was actually shutting down
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Arizona Global Campus Is Still Ashford Inside
On August 1, the University of Arizona (UA) announced it was buying out Zovio, a for-profit education company, from a contract that was reached in 2020 and was supposed to last 15 years. Under the original agreement, giant public university UA bought an online school called Ashford University from Zovio, and renamed it University of
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Some Threads: Kaplan, Perdoceo, Zovio, Keiser, Strayer
I can’t make time to write this week, but here are a few threads I posted on issues, regarding predatory college operations, that investigators and reporters might explore. Purdue University Global (Kaplan Inc.) Here’s @purdueglobal, owned by Purdue but operated by Kaplan/@grahamholdings, misleading the public that it’s the same school as the @LifeAtPurdue U ranked
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Accreditor SACS Fails to Stop Abuses at Keiser University
I’m offering a comment at today’s session of the Department of Education’s National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI), a board of outside experts charged with evaluating the private accreditation agencies that, in turn, oversee the quality of colleges and serve as gatekeepers for colleges’ eligibility for federal student grants and loans. My
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Keiser University, Lincoln Tech Oppose Debt Relief for Broke, Scammed Students
Three career college chains with troubling records have become the first institutions to object to a landmark court settlement that would provide some $6 billion in debt relief for about 264,000 former students who claim they were deceived by their schools. Keiser University (through its parent organization Everglades College), and, jointly, Lincoln Educational Services and
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