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.
The Mysterious Deal to Take DeVry University Private
Who owns the private company that is buying 30,000-student DeVry University, which gets some $400 million a year from taxpayers, and how do they plan to run the school? No one is saying. In December, one of the largest for-profit education companies, Adtalem Global Education, formerly known as DeVry Education Group, announced that
Continue Reading >>>
For-Profit College Lobbyist Blames Obama, John Oliver, New York Times, OITNB, for Industry Woes
In a recent essay, top for-profit college lobbyist Steve Gunderson, a Newt Gingrich crony and former GOP congressman (R-WI), blames Barack Obama, John Oliver, Adam Sandler, the New York Times, “Orange is the New Black,” and others for his industry’s dramatic decline in fortunes. “Years of relentless attacks from leading political figures, including the
Continue Reading >>>
Trump Terrible 10: Ryan-McConnell Complicity in Urgent Crisis Edition
Since 2017, Republic Report‘s “Trump Terrible 10” has ranked the week’s 10 most disgraceful figures in Trump world. Y’all, Trump world is on the verge of eclipsing the United States of America, unless Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan get their heads out of their donors’ whatevers and stand up for our democracy. Will they? Maybe not.
Continue Reading >>>
DeVos Gives Away Store, But For-Profit Colleges Want More
Across the full range of federal agencies, the “drain the swamp” Trump presidency is giving swampy corporations and special interests everything they want, by getting rid of health, safety, environmental, worker, civil rights, and consumer protection rules. Much of this organized corruption in favor of GOP donors, like oil companies, occurs on paper and behind
Continue Reading >>>
For-Profit Bridgepoint Says Its Colleges Will Become Non-Profit (But It Won’t)
Sunday we wrote about the new gold rush in education: for-profit colleges converting to non-profit status, allowing them to shed the stigma and special regulatory requirements of for-profits, notably the federal 90-10 rule, while retaining parallel for-profit entities that could keep getting paid by the non-profit, and thus keep getting rich off an endless flow
Continue Reading >>>
Trump Terrible 10: President for Life Edition
Since 2017, Republic Report‘s “Trump Terrible 10” has ranked the week’s 10 most disgraceful figures in Trump world. Republic Report, which focuses on how money corrupts democracy, has met its abusive dream mate with the kleptocratic administration of President Donald J. Trump. Trump and his lieutenants personify how money and greed, mixed with disrespect for constitutional values, know-nothing
Continue Reading >>>
Betsy DeVos Facilitates For-Profit Colleges’ Conversion Therapy
Participants at an upcoming invitation-only conference in the Washington DC area, entitled “Innovation and Public Private Partnership in Higher Education” (P3•EDU for short), will include Purdue University president Mitch Daniels and Graham Holdings chairman Donald Graham — fresh off the finalization of their troubling deal merging public Purdue and Graham’s for-profit Kaplan University. Also scheduled to
Continue Reading >>>
For-Profit College’s Bizarre Explanation for Shutting Out Students
Despite the ongoing project by Trump Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her revolving door lieutenants to abandon all accountability measures for predatory colleges and student loan collectors, for-profit schools around the country keep failing. The latest announcement comes from Lake Charles, Louisiana’s Delta Tech (Delta School of Business and Technology), which abruptly declared it would stop looking
Continue Reading >>>