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.
Dept. of Education Staff Moves to Dump For-Profit College Accreditor
The staff of the U.S. Department of Education has just recommended that a controversial college accrediting body face what a Department official labeled “termination” — an end to recognition by the Department as an agency that accredits schools. The Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS), founded in 1912, has been under fire
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For-Profit College Lobbyist Gives the Game Away
It is absolutely stunning that the for-profit colleges’ chief lobbyist, Steve Gunderson, told a reporter today that a new Obama Administration proposed rule — a rule that would finally give students and taxpayers some leverage to recover payments for abuses by predatory schools — “will crush career education.” What does that say about the performance
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Why We Need A Strong Student Debt Relief Rule
The Obama Administration is on the verge of issuing a proposed rule that would create new procedures and standards for cancelling the federal student loan debt of people who were defrauded by their colleges. The rule would also create new standards for the Department of Education to require colleges to post escalating letters of credit based
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As APSCU Meeting Opens, Ex-Members Make Big News
The for-profit college trade association APSCU opened its conference today in Orlando, and amid sessions about dealing with increased government scrutiny after APSCU’s failed lobbying strategy, there was news about two former APSCU members: Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey today announced a June 2 agreement under which for-profit American Career Institute (ACI), which shut down
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For-Profit College Industry, In Freefall, Convenes in Florida
Today, the troubled for-profit college industry’s troubled trade association, APSCU, begins its four-day annual convention, at the Rosen Shingle Creek resort in Orlando FL. Unlike past years, there is no big name keynote speaker, no George W. Bush, Jeb Bush, or Newt Gingrich, and no dance party with a semi-faux version of the Beach Boys or Kool
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Trump University: A Scam, But a Familiar One
Four hundred pages of documents released on Tuesday by a federal judge in San Diego add detail to the tawdry story of Donald Trump’s unaccredited Trump University. The operation appears to have relied on high-pressure recruiting pitches, buoyed by deceptive claims, and it had an extensive playbook focused not on teaching students the art of the real estate deal
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Kaplan’s Graham Lobbies White House Against Debt Relief for Defrauded Students
Donald Graham, who turned his family company from the fabled owners of the Washington Post newspaper into the purveyors of the predatory for-profit college Kaplan University, met twice late this month with senior White House officials. Graham’s aim, as documents he left behind and were posted by the Office of Management and Budget indicate: to derail the
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A Dubious Benefit: Big Employers Steer Workers to Troubled For-Profit Colleges
American Airlines tells its workers that one of the employee benefits for which they are eligible is “career development training,” and an internal employee benefits web page lists American’s “learning partners and other sources for tuition discounts, waived enrollment fees and education grants to help you further develop your professional skills.” The schools listed by the company
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