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.
Idaho Senate Rejects Bill to Salvage U of Phoenix Deal (As UAGC Facts Get Uglier)
The Idaho Senate yesterday rejected legislation aimed at fixing legal problems with the deal for the University of Idaho to acquire the giant for-profit University of Phoenix. By a vote of 14-19, senators voted down Senate Bill 1450, which sought to convert Four Three Education, a non-profit created by the state Board of Education for
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Check Out These Oil Executives Literally Destroying Our World and Not Giving a Shit
The Guardian reports this morning that top executives of major oil and gas companies, gathered this week at an industry conference in Houston, are scoffing at efforts to rapidly transition from fossil fuels to clean energy, despite the clear scientific evidence that a failure to reduce greenhouse gases soon will create chaos for our climate
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Congress Should Reject Bill To Let Private Groups Control Access To U.S. Laws
Last summer, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Jerry Nadler (NY), the committee’s ranking Democrat, offered at a committee meeting legislation called the PRO Codes Act, as part of a package of three bills they declared to be common sense bipartisan measures. But after the committee adopted the other
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U of Idaho President Pressed Alumni Group To Hire Lobbyist for Phoenix Deal
At the urging of University of Idaho president C. Scott Green, the school’s alumni association recently hired a lobbyist whose duties have included trying to persuade state legislators not to thwart Green’s plan for his school to acquire the for-profit giant University of Phoenix. The proposed deal to spend $685 million to buy Phoenix, a
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Is the FTC Investigating U of Phoenix Again? Idahoans Deserve An Answer.
The University of Idaho’s proposed $685 million deal to buy the for-profit University of Phoenix is becoming increasingly controversial in the state of Idaho. It could get even more controversial if it turns out, as might well be the case, that the University of Phoenix, which has a long history of predatory practices and resulting
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Education Department Needs Stronger Rules for Accreditors
I’m scheduled to offer a brief public comment at today’s session of the Department of Education’s negotiating rulemaking meetings, where representatives of various higher education constituencies have come together to debate new proposed regulations governing issues including distance education, state government authorization of schools, and standards for the private accrediting bodies that oversee schools. My
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Idaho House Committee Votes Against U. of Phoenix Deal
The Idaho House State Affairs Committee today voted unanimously for a resolution urging the Idaho State Board of Education to reconsider the deal for the University of Idaho to acquire the for-profit University of Phoenix, and authorizing the Legislature to sue if necessary to stop the purchase. The vote came just a day after University
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Concerns Mount in Idaho Over U. of Phoenix Deal
When three U.S. senators — Dick Durbin (D-IL), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) — wrote last fall to C. Scott Green, the president of the University of Idaho, to raise concerns about that state school’s plan to buy, for $685 million, the giant for-profit University of Phoenix, they received a hostile letter from
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