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.
DeVos’s Absurd Attack On For-Profit College’s Sudden Shutdown
For-profit Education Corporation of America (ECA) announced today that it is shutting down nearly all of its campuses, leaving students out in the cold. The DeVos Department of Education harshly criticized the move. But that DeVos attack is itself travesty, because every step Betsy DeVos has taken as secretary has helped ensure more fiascos like
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While You Were Eating: DeVos’s Holiday Embrace of Predatory Colleges
In a Thanksgiving eve disgrace, Trump Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos reinstated ACICS, the discredited college accreditor that ignored blatant abuses of students by predatory for-profit schools like ITT, Corinthian, Kaplan, the Art Institutes, and many more, thus allowing billions in taxpayer dollars to flow to scam artists over decades. The Obama Administration, after a lengthy review, ended federal recognition
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Trump Terrible 10: What the Actual FFFF Edition
Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you and yours have a beautiful day. This week, I firmly resolved in my mind, because of other urgent priorities, and in the spirit of love, to stop writing this negative feature. But also this week, OMFG. OMFG. Next week, maybe I will and maybe I won’t! That being said, since
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Scam Websites Tried to Trick Military Recruits Into Entering For-Profit Colleges
We reported in September on a Federal Trade Commission action to shut down a chain of scam websites aimed at attracting people who wanted to join the U.S. military. Sites operating at domains including Army.com, Air-Force.com, and Navyenlist.com seemed like official military portals, but their real aim was to steer visitors to high-priced, low-quality for-profit
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Accreditor Stalls Bridgepoint Education Plan To Become Non-Profit
In a filing this morning with the Securities and Exchange Commission, predatory for-profit college business Bridgepoint Education discloses that on Monday the accreditor WASC Senior College and University Commission told Bridgepoint’s Ashford University that “pending the receipt and review of additional documents, they are deferring any action on the change of control application filed by
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Trump Terrible 10: Post-Election Horrible Authoritarian Edition
Let’s start with our exclusive interview earlier today with President Donald J. Trump: Republic Report: Thank you, sir, for taking the time to answer a few questions. Trump: RR: OK, first, when it comes to what you hope to accomplish in the new Congress, are you going to be looking into just a few similar
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In Whitaker’s Wake, Will Trump Replace Mattis With Another Sycophant?
Jeff Sessions, for all his hard-line ideological views, seemed as attorney general to act with basic integrity and respect for constitutional principles, including the independence of the judiciary and the need for Justice Department investigations to be free of presidential meddling. By contrast, his acting replacement, Matthew Whitaker, appears ready to do anything to cater
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Trump Terrible 10: Jewish Edition
No one loves Israel and The Jews more than Trump. Or The Blacks, or The Mexicans, believe me. Yet, somehow, no one riles up anti-semitic White supremacists more than Trump, or fails to disavow anti-semitic White supremacists more than Trump, or spreads more lies and bigotry than Trump, because, even after the horrific Pittsburgh synagogue
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