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.
FTC Nails University of Phoenix For Ad Whose Deceptions Reflect Disturbing Deal
I’ve written here before about the shameful practice of many large employers offering a dubious benefit to their employees: “discounted” tuition to overpriced for-profit colleges, some of them schools that have faced numerous law enforcement actions for fraud and deception. I’ve questioned why these employers would want to steer their employees to schools that ruin
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DeVos-Backed College Operator Gets Court OK To Strip Students Of Their Rights
Betsy DeVos has been under pressure from congressional Democrats and others because of evidence that her Department of Education facilitated deceptions against students by a failed predatory college operation, Dream Center Education Holdings. At the same time, she’s taken heat, and been held in contempt by a federal judge, because the Department has illegally pursued
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GAO Probing For-Profit College Conversions As DeVos Retreats on Approvals
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the watchdog agency that works for Congress, is investigating Department of Education and Internal Revenue Service oversight of for-profit college conversions to non-profit status. The GAO study was requested last year by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), now the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee; Sen. Patty Murray
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One Whistleblower Triggered Dream Center Demise, DeVos Debacle
It started with a message out of the blue, sent by “John Doe,” a Dream Center Education Holdings employee who was not yet ready to tell me his or her name. “I know you have reported extensively on for-profit institutions, including EDMC, its unethical activities, and disregard for staff,” the employee began a message
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DeVos Cancels Loans for Students Her Department Helped Deceive
Under pressure from a federal lawsuit and congressional questioning, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced this morning she is cancelling some student loans and restoring eligibility for federal Pell grants for about 1500 students who in 2018 attended the Art Institute of Colorado and the Illinois Institute of Art. As Republic Report was the first
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Scott Rejects Hearing From DeVos Subordinate; Demands She Testify
In a letter sent this evening, House Education and Labor Committee chairman Bobby Scott (D-VA) rejected the Department of Education’s proposal that it send for a hearing a Department official in place of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Scott had requested that DeVos testify regarding the Department’s utter failure to halt the collection of debts
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Students’ Lawyer: DeVos Dept. Double-Crossed Me To Aid Scam Colleges
Robyn Smith, a lawyer associated with the National Consumer Law Center and the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, was selected by the U.S. Department of Education to represent students in negotiations earlier this year on a basket of new Department regulations affecting college accreditation, online education, and other matters. The Department heavily stacked the
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Breaking: Judge Holds DeVos in Contempt For Pressing Students To Make Bogus Loan Payments
U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim today issued an order holding Secretary Betsy DeVos and the Department of Education in contempt of court and fined them $100,000 for violating her order that they stop trying to collect on loans from former students of for-profit Corinthian Colleges schools. The Department, during the Obama administration, determined that the
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