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.
Convicted Felon Martha Stewart to Keynote Convention Involving Predatory For-Profit Colleges
CECU, the trade association of for-profit colleges, announced to its members today that lifestyle entrepreneur Martha Stewart will be the keynote speaker for its annual conference, to be held in person in Grapevine, Texas, in June. Stewart, the omnipresent author and television host, recently hailed in Fortune as American’s first female self-made billionaire, was convicted
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To Curb Scam Colleges, Cardona Must Open Education Department Books
Earlier this month, 15 national organizations, including the American Federation of Teachers, Center for American Progress, and the National Consumer Law Center, plus me, sent a letter to the new U.S. Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, urging the education department to move promptly to provide the public with much better access to critical information about
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Ex-Democratic Congressman Joins Board of For-Profit College That Preys On Low-Income Students
Perdoceo Education Corp., operator of for-profit colleges that have repeatedly faced law enforcement actions for deceiving and abusing low-income students, announced today that Alan Wheat, a former Democratic congressman representing Missouri, has joined the company’s board of directors. Wheat, a senior policy advisor in the DC office of the law firm Polsinelli, will receive $80,000
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Independence University Operator Seeks To Conceal Record of Trial It Lost
The Center for Excellence in Higher Education, which runs online Independence University, CollegeAmerica, and other schools, received a devastating $3 million judgment last summer from a Colorado judge who presided over the trial of a case brought by the state’s attorney general. Now, while CEHE appeals that decision and seeks to fend off an
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It’s Time for the Education Department to Dismiss Accreditor ACICS
Today the Department of Education’s advisory committee on higher education, NACIQI, is considering for the second time in five years whether the Department should eliminate the accrediting body ACICS as a gatekeeper for colleges’ access to federal student grants and loans. It was a dramatic development in 2016 when the same committee — consisting of
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Biden Hiring Risks Oversized Influence For Big DC Law Firm
The Biden Department of Education has hired two lawyers who recently worked at the DC-mega law firm WilmerHale, amid other signs of that firm’s increasing influence over matters in the new administration. The deep penetration of the Biden-Harris administration by WilmerHale, which has repeatedly represented, among many other special interests, predatory for-profit colleges, comes as
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Biden Hires Another For-Profit College Lawyer
Joe Biden, who pledged to get tough on predatory for-profit colleges, has just hired another person for a high-level job — at least the third so far — who previously worked for terrible, abusive for-profit schools. Alicia O’Brien, as the American Prospect reported today, has been named senior counsel and special assistant to the
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The Monitor Insists Perdoceo is Doing OK. Whistleblowers’ Evidence Shows Otherwise.
Republic Report has obtained the second annual report of the lawyer hired to monitor the compliance of giant for-profit college company Perdoceo with its January 2019 $494 million settlement with 48 state attorneys general, plus the District of Columbia. The AGs alleged that the company engaged in widespread deceptive practices against students. For the second
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