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.
Appeals Court Rejects For-Profit College Attack on Obama Rule
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington DC this morning rejected the for-profit college trade group’s challenge to the Obama Administration’s gainful employment rule, a regulation that holds career training programs accountable for consistently leaving students with overwhelming debt. Perhaps recognizing that the war of words over the rule had gone on
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Wall St Journal Again Posts Anti-Student Op-Ed Without Disclosing For-Profit College Ties
The Wall Street Journal today published an op-ed arguing against providing broad student loan debt relief for people who were deceived by their colleges. The co-authors of the article, Jorge Klor de Alva and Mark Schneider, contend that such relief will be expensive — potentially more than $1 billion for students of now-shuttered for-profit Corinthian Colleges
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Romney & Rubio Attack Trump University, But Both Are Tied to Predatory Colleges
Mitt Romney will charge in a speech today, according to excerpts released in advance, that Donald Trump’s “promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University.” Romney’s attack follows Marco Rubio’s recent hits on Trump’s unlicensed for-profit business “school”; at the last GOP debate, Rubio charged, “There are people that borrowed $36,000 to go to
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For-Profit College Recruiter Hides Behind McDonalds Arches
A website displaying McDonalds’ famed golden arches and promising jobs at the fast-food empire quickly pushes visitors instead to recruiters at for-profit colleges, including those owned by two of the largest and most troubled companies in this sector — ITT Tech and Education Management Corporation (EDMC). Republic Report has exposed in the past websites that promise
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UC Davis Chancellor Quits DeVry Board of Directors After Eight Days
For-profit college company DeVry Education Group announced last week that the Chancellor of the University of California-Davis, Linda Katehi, had joined its board of directors. Today, after facing criticism from public interest organizations and a California legislator, Katehi quit the DeVry board. The Federal Trade Commission sued DeVry in January for alleged deceptive advertising. The company
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NY Court Refuses to Dismiss Trump University Case, Describes Fraud Allegations
Last week, when Marco Rubio charged Donald Trump with illegal labor practices, Trump dismissed the claims as old news, leading Rubio to respond, “I guess there’s a statute of limitation on lies.” Meanwhile, in a New York court, Trump had raised an actual statute of limitations defense to fraud claims brought by New York attorney
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Students Testify: For-Profit Colleges Stole Our Futures
After six years of engagement on the issue of America’s predatory for-profit colleges, I feel I’ve seen it all — every kind of account of students deceived and abused by cynical college operators who have taken billions in federal student aid money, of slick industry lobbyists using campaign cash to avoid accountability measures, of government
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Dept. of Education Takes on the University of Nowheresville
Last week, Secretary of Education John King and Undersecretary Ted Mitchell announced the creation of a new enforcement division, headed by an experienced Federal Trade Commission lawyer, to crack down on deceptive practices by colleges, particularly in the abusive for-profit college sector. It was one of those days when it looked like the Department, long
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