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.
Ex-New York Times Reporter Now Lobbying to Block Student Debt Relief
For-profit colleges are once again fighting furiously, and expensively, to gut a common sense regulation from the Obama Department of Education. The Hill today is calling this latest lobbying battle a “frenzy.” The Obama rule spurring this frenzy would: 1. Implement a law already on the books by providing standards and procedures for the government to forgive the
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College Staffed by ex-Trump University Executives Tells Employees to Avoid the Media
Tampa-based college Ultimate Medical Academy (UMA), whose co-CEO was the chief operating officer of controversial Trump University, has emailed its employees regarding an article that Republic Report published earlier this week. UMA CEO Steven Kemler wrote to his staff (see images below) that Republic Report‘s article “presented an unbalanced perspective about UMA” and directed all
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Ex-Trump University Executives Run College That Gets $150 Million from Taxpayers
Two former high-ranking executives of Trump University are now two of the top executives at a Florida-based career college, Ultimate Medical Academy, that has 13,000 students enrolled, has been receiving more than $150 million annually in federal student aid, and is accredited by the imperiled agency ACICS. The school, previously a for-profit institution tied to a New
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For A Day, Broke Students Win
In a world of mass shootings, Brexit, and a looming dramatic presidential election, the deliberations of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI), in a nondescript meeting room at the DoubleTree Crystal City in Arlington, VA, would hardly seem to matter. But, yesterday, it did matter. By the scheduled 8:30 am
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Friends In High Places: Who Endorses America’s Troubled For-Profit Colleges?
Today Republic Report is releasing a brand-new investigative report: Friends In High Places: Who Endorses America’s Troubled For-Profit Colleges? Our report describes in detail the network of prominent Americans — lawyers, lobbyists, board members, university presidents, politicians, celebrities, and others — who continue to lend their credibility and talents to defending or promoting seven of
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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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