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.
Mass. Attorney General: For-Profit College Kaplan Deceived Students
Massachusetts attorney general Maura Healey today announced settlements of her investigations of two large for-profit college chains — Kaplan and Lincoln Technical Institute — for unfair and deceptive student recruiting practices. Kaplan will pay $1.375 million to former students, and Lincoln Tech will pay out about $1 million. Court documents filed in the matters describe the
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Corinthian to Justice Dept: Get Our Docs Before ECMC Abandons Them
A lawyer for shut-down Corinthian Colleges has written to a U.S. Justice Department lawyer investigating the for-profit college company, warning that some school records may be “abandoned” as soon as next month. The June 29 letter, obtained by Republic Report, opens a window into the Corinthian litigation, and also highlights questions about the U.S. Department of Education’s decision to
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Debt Collection Agency Run By Ex-Bush Official & Ex-Corinthian Exec Sues To Pile More Penalties on Broke Students
Inside Higher Ed reports today that USA Funds, a corporation engaged in collecting federal student loan debts from borrowers, has sued the U.S. Department of Education over a policy statement the Department released last week barring companies from charging loan collection fees to students who default but promptly make arrangements to resume payments. USA Funds’s complaint says the
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APSCU Letter To For-Profit Colleges: Our New Direction
Former congressman Steve Gunderson (R-WI), president of the for-profit colleges’ main trade association, APSCU, this morning sent a dramatically-worded letter to APSCU members announcing organizational changes that “have the potential to create a new beginning for the sector and the association.” In the circumstances, his words were reminiscent of Spinal Tap’s David St. Hubbins, who
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Big For-Profit Colleges Quit Trade Group APSCU
Some of the largest for-profit college companies — including, last month, DeVry and Kaplan — have recently left the industry’s main trade group, the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities (APSCU). The defections have come amid a rapid decline in the reputations and fortunes of many for-profit colleges — and the apparent failure of
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GOP Candidates Compete In For-Profit College Primary
As the 2012 GOP nomination contest neared the critical Iowa caucuses, Mitt Romney was asked by the Ames (Iowa) Tribune editorial board what he planned to do about higher education. Romney’s response (VIDEO) was crystal clear: He liked for-profit colleges, especially a Florida school called Full Sail University. It turned out that Full Sail’s owners were among
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Meet The Lawyers Who Pushed The Supreme Court to Block Toxic Power Plant Rules
In the last announced decision of its term, the U.S. Supreme Court today, by a 5-4 vote and an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia, struck down the Environmental Protection Agency’s carefully-crafted rules to limit the emission of mercury and other toxic pollutants from oil and coal power plants. Justice Scalia concluded that the EPA failed
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Arne Duncan Transcript: Some For-Profit Colleges have “the ethics of payday lending”
On Monday, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Under Secretary Ted Mitchell had a conference call for reporters to announce the Department’s plans to offer debt relief for students from the now-collapsed, predatory Corinthian Colleges. I offered some analysis that day about the announcement, but here’s the whole transcript. It contains some of the most
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