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.
Trump Terrible 10: Democrat vs. Predator Edition
This was the week that the President of the United States told voters to choose an accused pedophile and disgraceful bigot to be Alabama’s next U.S. senator. Trump can’t sink any lower. Or can he? I’ll be letting you know next week. Since 2017, Republic Report‘s “Trump Terrible 10” has ranked the week’s 10 most disgraceful figures
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Ex-Bush Official Hansen Joins Board of Predatory For-Profit College Chain CEC, And It Makes Sense
A tangled web of for-profit connections adds up to more bad news for struggling students. For-profit college chain Career Education Corporation (CEC) announced last week that William D. Hansen has joined the company’s board of directors. It’s a disturbing validation by Hansen, a former top Department of Education official under George W. Bush, of a predatory
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Trump Terrible 10: Turkey Pardon Edition
I got a call from Bernie Bernstein of the Washington Post, offering me $300 to keep writing this feature. I was caught off-guard and blurted that I would probably still write it even without the money. I really regret that. But I’m thankful this week that we’re at 10 months out of 48 and we
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Bridgepoint SEC Filing Raises Questions About Continued Federal Funding
A filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission by troubled Bridgepoint Education raises questions about the company’s continued compliance with a federal law requiring for-profit colleges to obtain at least 10 percent of their revenue from sources other than Department of Education-provided student grants and loans. Bridgepoint’s access to other funding was placed in
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DeVos Department Stacks Negotiations Deck With For-Profit College Lawyers
When Betsy DeVos announced she would repeal and replace the Obama administration’s rules to protect students and taxpayers against predatory for-profit colleges, one of the signs that she was stacking the deck was the announcement that her Department of Education would select not the traditional two, but instead four, representatives of for-profit colleges to be
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DeVos Stands with Scoundrels, Not Students
The U.S. Department of Education under Secretary Betsy DeVos this week began the process of dismantling the rules issued under President Obama to constrain the predatory abuses of for-profit colleges. At the end of the troubling first day of what’s called negotiated rulemaking, members of the public were given an opportunity to speak. I was
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DeVos Department Tries to Block Public Streaming of Student Debt Hearing
Staff of the U.S. Department of Education this morning refused to let attendees live-stream its negotiated rulemaking meeting, the first in a series of sessions where the Trump-DeVos department is aiming to roll back Obama-era rules to protect students and taxpayers from predatory practices by for-profit colleges. It then actively resisted proposals from negotiators representing
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Trump Terrible 10: Big Olde’ Fat Man Edition
Since 2017, Republic Report‘s “Trump Terrible 10” has ranked the week’s 10 most disgraceful figures in Trump world. Between Bob Mueller’s expanding Russiagate probe, and the fine people who cast their ballots last Tuesday against the ugliness of this presidency, Trump world is finally taking a beating. But there’s a long, long way to go, and meanwhile
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