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.
Backing DeVos Repeal of Obama Rules, For-Profit Colleges Vilify Students
Today is the second day of the second round of the Betsy DeVos Department of Education’s regulatory meetings to repeal and replace the Obama administration’s borrower defense rule — a rule that was aimed at protecting students and taxpayers from predatory practices by for-profit colleges. The DeVos Department’s intentions already have been made apparent, with
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DeVos Department Slamming Door on Defrauded Students
This morning in Washington, Betsy DeVos’s Department of Education resumed the stakeholder sessions that are required by law in order for the Trump administration to repeal and replace Obama-era rules aimed at protecting students and taxpayers from abuses by predatory for-profit colleges. As pro-student negotiators no doubt will make clear over four days of meetings,
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Trump Terrible 10: Holiday Emoluments Edition
Happy holidays from all of us at Trump Terrible 10! If you’re like us, you’ve been spending your holiday time eating, watching Fox News, playing golf at your emolument, insulting people on Twitter, and treating your relatives and guests poorly, except when you were giving them a tax cut. For all you believers, Merry Christmas.
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New DeVos Loan Forgiveness Plan: Another Assault on Students and Gift to Predatory Schools
It took Betsy DeVos nearly a year to take any action on the nearly 100,000 applications by former students who assert that they were deceived and abused by predatory for-profit colleges like Corinthian, ITT, and Kaplan. But the new process announced today appears to be a step backwards, a new attack on students, and a
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Trump Terrible 10: Misogynist Disgrace Edition
Who are we referencing in the headline? We’ll be letting you know in two or three weeks. Kidding! We’ll tell you today. 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
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Trump Terrible 10: Pensacola Rally Edition
On the heels of the Senate’s massive tax giveaway to the ultra-rich, the tilt by Mitch McConnell and other establishment GOP senators toward awful bigot and accused predator Roy Moore shows that the Republican Party has become a disgracefully dirty alliance between corporate interests and malicious people, with corrupt businessman / accused predator Donald Trump
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Will DeVos Turn Over Policy to Earth’s Most Entitled People?
At this week’s Department of Education ongoing public meeting to advance Betsy DeVos’s plan to repeal and replace the Obama rules on for-profit colleges, owners and executives of those institutions repeat familiar themes, both during formal sessions and in hallway conversations. Faced with evidence that many for-profit college students end up dropping out, or graduating
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DeVos Stands With Scoundrels, Not Students – part 2
The U.S. Department of Education under Secretary Betsy DeVos this week began the next step in dismantling the rules issued under President Obama to constrain the predatory abuses of for-profit colleges against students and taxpayers. Last month the Department moved toward taking apart the “borrower defense rule,” which created standards and procedures for students injured by
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