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.
McCain Lashes Out At Durbin, Defends Veteran-Abusing For-Profit Colleges
Senator John McCain (R-AZ), in a speech on the Senate floor yesterday afternoon, charged that fellow Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) has “orchestrated” a “shameful … vendetta against for-profit universities.” McCain upped the ante by asserting that Durbin has a “well-known record of not supporting the men and women who are serving in the military.” Alleging a larger conspiracy,
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McCain, Alexander Press DoD To Back Off Probe of U. of Phoenix, Their Donor
Republican Senators John McCain (AZ), Jeff Flake (AZ), and Lamar Alexander (TN) wrote today to Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter calling on him to “reconsider” the Department’s decision to put the largest for-profit college, the University of Phoenix, on probation for alleged violations in recruiting U.S. military service members. All three Senators have received significant
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For-Profit College Owner, Who Used Strippers As Lure, Goes On Trial
Alejandro Amor (pictured just above), the former owner-CEO of for-profit FastTrain College, is scheduled to face a jury trial in Miami Wednesday morning. Amor and his co-defendant, former FastTrain admissions staffer Anthony Mincey, face criminal charges of defrauding the federal government to obtain about $6.5 million in student aid — Pell grants and Direct Loans. Two other FastTrain employees charged
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Climate Denier Response to WSJ Story Revealing Coal Payments: (1) Dog Ate Homework (2) I’m A Lawyer
Professional climate change denier Christopher Horner offered some interesting responses to the Wall Street Journal when it asked about a court filing indicating that Horner had received $18,600 this year from coal company Alpha Natural Resources before it filed for bankruptcy in August. Initially, yesterday’s Journal story stated that Horner did not respond to a request
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Purveyors of Wisdom on Higher Ed Panel Have Advanced Harmful For-Profit College Agenda
Today, the day after the New York Times ran a blockbuster front-page lead story describing some of the worst ongoing abuses of big for-profit colleges, one of the nation’s leading higher education philanthropies kicked off a major conference in Washington with a panel giving its place of honor to the retired former chairman of the House of
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Group Holding Bipartisan Presidential Debate Today is Dominated by Corporate Lobbyists
The non-profit group No Labels held an unusual candidate forum this morning in New Hampshire. The “No Labels Problem Solver Convention” featured five Republicans plus three Democrats — including Donald Trump, Chris Christie, John Kasich, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O’Malley — all at the same event. No Labels has been organizing on the ground in primary states,
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For-Profit Colleges Enlist Capitol Hill Supplicants, US Chamber In Renewed Push Against Obama Rule
The for-profit college’s trade association, APSCU, was once mighty but is now hobbled, discredited, and depleted. Yet the group, and its industry, still have the money — most it from taxpayer-funded student aid to its schools — to lobby, give campaign contributions to politicians, and hire lawyers to fight its biggest piece of Kryptonite: the
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For-Profit Colleges Appear to Use Random WASP College Name Generator
Yesterday, Birmingham, Alabama-based for-profit college company Education Corporation of America (ECA) announced the new name for the campuses, until now called Kaplan College, that it recently bought from Graham Holdings Company. The schools will henceforth be known as “Brightwood College.” Are the schools to be named after New England education pioneer Jebediah Brightwood? Nope. It appears that there
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