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.
Who’s Lobbying for For-Profit Colleges in the Trump-DeVos Era?
Now that former Trump University pitchman Donald Trump is the President of the United States, his Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, appears ready to gut the efforts made by the Obama Administration to hold for-profit colleges accountable for engaging in the same kind of deceptive, predatory behavior exhibited by Trump’s real estate “school.” A for-profit college industry
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Trump Team Disgracefulness Power Rankings – Week 3
Obviously, Republic Report is super-busy and doesn’t have time to do its regular job and still publish Trump Team Disgracefulness Power Rankings every week, but there’s been so much disgracefulness this week that we don’t have time to think about that. Republic Report, which focuses on how money corrupts democracy, has met its dream mate with the kleptocratic administration
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Should This College Operator Run A Key Federal Oversight Panel?
For some people engaged in the world of higher education politics, watching Arthur Keiser ascend the dais at a Washington, DC, hotel Tuesday morning as the new chair of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI) — the group of experts charged with advising the Department on the
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Trump Team Disgracefulness Power Rankings – Week 2
When Republic Report published Trump Team Disgracefulness Power Rankings – Week 1 last week, we weren’t sure we’d ever have time to do it again, let alone five days later. But there’s been so much disgracefulness this week that the rankings basically wrote themselves. As we explained last week, Republic Report, which focuses on how money corrupts
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Confirmed: Trump Trashing Rules to Protect Students from Predatory Colleges
It is now confirmed: Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos are trashing the Obama rules created to protect students and taxpayers from scam for-profit colleges. The purpose of these rules is to determine which career training programs are actually helping students build careers, and channel taxpayer dollars to those schools, rather than to overpriced, low-quality schools
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Senators Tell DeVos That Delaying Student Loan Rule Would Violate the Law
Four influential Democratic senators — Dick Durbin (IL), Patti Murray (WA), Sherrod Brown (OH), and Elizabeth Warren (MA) — have written to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to warn that her department cannot, without engaging in an extensive process, delay or cancel an Obama administration rule providing debt relief for defrauded students. The Senators assert
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Trump Team Disgracefulness Power Rankings
Republic Report, which focuses on how money corrupts democracy, has met its perfect mate with the administration of President Donald J. Trump. Trump and his lieutenants personify how money and greed, mixed with angry bigotry, disrespect for constitutional freedoms, and know-nothing ignorance, can really, really corrupt democracy. Eyeing the awful kleptocratic corruptness of the Trump administration
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Evidence is strong that Trump obstructed justice: The basics
1. To prove President Trump committed obstruction of justice, you don’t have to prove that James Comey is a saint (and he’s not). 2. In fact, you don’t even have to believe Trump said to Comey, regarding the investigation of Michael Flynn, “I hope you can let this go,” although I do believe it, and
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