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 To Revitalize Enforcement Office
Rising to the challenge of protecting America’s students from deceptive predatory colleges, the U.S. Department of Education announced today a major upgrade to its enforcement and investigative operation. Kristen Donoghue, who served as enforcement director at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau during the Obama administration, was named the Department’s chief enforcement officer, heading a revived
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FTC Announces Crackdown on Predatory College Abuses
The Federal Trade Commission this morning announced a new initiative to combat deceptive and unfair practices in the for-profit higher education industry. At a press conference, FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra and Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Samuel Levine explained that the commission had voted to exercise long-unused powers to warn for-profit colleges against making misrepresentations
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NPR Report Highlights Wall Street Journal Role in Smear on Obama Official
A report out today from NPR highlights the pernicious role that the Wall Street Journal has played in spreading false attacks and innuendoes, invented by the for-profit college industry, on former Obama Department of Education official Robert Shireman. The new article, by David Folkenflik, NPR’s media reporter, details misleading aspects of Wall Street Journal reports
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Shuttered CEHE College Chain Gets Mixed Appeals Verdict
A panel of the Colorado Court of Appeals has upheld part, but also reversed part, of a trial judge’s $3 million verdict against the predatory college operation Center for Excellence in Higher Education (CEHE), its now-shuttered schools, and its principal executives, Carl Barney and Eric Juhlin. The panel ordered a new trial on claims that
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Will Arkansas Become the Latest State U. To Acquire a Predatory College?
The University of Arkansas System board of trustees is meeting Wednesday morning to consider acquiring for-profit Grantham University. The university announced it plans to pay $1 to buy Lenexa, Kansas-based Grantham, an online school with some 4000 students. The Level Playing Field Corp. owns Grantham. UA System President Donald Bobbitt is calling the potential deal
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Accreditor SACS Must Explain Its Tolerance of Abuses At Keiser Universities
In a separate post today, I discuss how the Department of Education is at a crossroads in its oversight of accrediting agencies, the private bodies that serve as reviewers of college quality and integrity and gatekeepers for eligibility for federal student grants and loans. Below, in response to a request for public comment related to the
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Education Department Hearing Exposes Divisions on Higher Ed Abuses
1. Collegial higher ed and its consequences When I first got involved with higher education issues, about ten years ago, I observed a remarkable division: Congressional investigations and numerous media reports were highlighting blatant deceptions and abuses of students by numerous for-profit colleges. Yet in the rooms where higher education officials gathered — at Department
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Education Dynamics Falsely Peddles For-Profit Colleges As Non-Profit
You can learn a lot just by googling. Yesterday, I searched Google for “nonprofit colleges,” and the top response was the ad shown above, promising “Flexible Degree Programs Offered by Non For Profit Online Colleges.” I clicked on the link, and it sent me to this site called “findcolleges” or “findtopcolleges.” As indicated in the
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