About: David Halperin
Twitter: @DaHalperin
Bio: David Halperin, a self-employed lawyer based in Washington DC, engages in public advocacy work on a wide range of issues, including higher education and climate change. He also advises organizations and companies on strategy, policy, communications, and legal matters, and he is of counsel to Public.Resource.org.
Halperin was previously: founding director of Campus Progress and senior vice president at the Center for American Progress; senior policy advisor for Howard Dean's 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/RealNetworks; counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee; and law clerk to U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell.
He has represented clients in the U.S. Supreme Court and various state and federal courts.
He 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 the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Transportation, and spoken at major events held by the National Consumer Law Center, Consumer Federation of America, Arizona State University, American Educational Research Association, and Center for American Progress.
Halperin has served for more than a decade on the board of directors of Public Citizen.
He graduated from Yale College and Yale Law School.
Predatory Colleges, Converted To Non-Profit, Are Failing
About a dozen years ago, owners of some of the biggest, worst-acting for-profit colleges began concocting, with their eager, high-paid lawyers, schemes to convert their schools into non-profits. The apparent aims were to evade the heightened government regulations applied uniquely to for-profit schools in order to guard against waste, fraud, and abuse — and to
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Trump Quiz!
1. As president, Trump did: (a) a horrible job (b) an Incredible Job 2. At the hands of the Fake News Media, Trump Hating Judges, and the Radical Left Democrats, Trump has been: (a) treated fairly (b) treated unfairly (c) Treated Very Unfairly™ 3. Experts who defend Trump are: (a) total losers (b) getting paid
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Accreditor SACS Must End Abuses at Keiser University
On Friday I submitted to the U.S. Department of Education, as part of their ongoing process of evaluating college accrediting organizations, a comment on the accreditor Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Commission on Colleges (SACS). The Department reviews the performance of accreditors in order to decide whether they are effective gatekeepers for the taxpayer-funded
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Education Department Terminates Aid to Union Institute & University
The U.S. Department of Education has terminated federal student aid to Cincinnati, Ohio-based Union Institute & University and fined the school $4.3 million, charging in a 14-page “emergency action” letter sent on November 7 that the non-profit school “misused Title IV funds to the detriment of its students, the department and taxpayers.” The Department alleges
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Todd Nelson Reinstalled As Perdoceo CEO
The for-profit college company Perdoceo today named Todd Nelson as president and CEO, replacing Andrew Hurst, who resigned after less than two years in the job. Nelson had been the company’s executive chairman, and before that was Perdoceo’s CEO and president from 2015 to 2022. The market analysis firm PAA Research responded with this
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Brian Mueller, The Most Entitled Man in Higher Education
For weeks, both before and after the U.S. Department of Education imposed a $37 million fine on Grand Canyon University for its systematic deception of students regarding the costs of their educations, the school’s president, Brian Mueller, has engaged in a public relations blitz aimed at attacking the federal officials who investigated and penalized his
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Accreditor Backs U of Phoenix-Idaho Purchase, As Evidence Grows That Similar Arizona Deal Is a Mess
Chicago-based accrediting agency Higher Learning Commission (HLC), which oversees giant for-profit University of Phoenix, has signed off on the controversial deal, announced in May, for Phoenix to be sold by its owners, led by private equity behemoth Apollo Global Management, to a new non-profit entity tied to the University of Idaho. At its November meeting,
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Shuttered For-Profit ASA College Aims for Comeback
New York City’s ASA College, a for-profit school that lost its accreditation and closed its doors to students in February — following scandals involving deceptive subway ads and sexual misconduct allegations against its owner — seems to be trying for a comeback. ASA College’s board chair, Frank Seddio, sent a letter dated November 1 to
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