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.
Education Department Fines Grand Canyon U $37 Million for Deceiving Students
The U.S. Department of Education today announced it has levied a $37.7 million fine on Grand Canyon University for alleged deceptions of students in the school’s doctoral programs. The fine amount, unusually large for the Department, was pegged to the gravity and scope of the abuses, as well as the size of the institution and
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FTC, New Jersey Charge For-Profit College With Deceptions, Order Student Debts Cancelled
The Federal Trade Commission and the state of New Jersey have reached parallel settlements with for-profit Sollers College, under which the school has been ordered to cancel $3.4 million in student debt for about 400 students. Sollers, which has a single campus in New Jersey plus courses online, also must pay a $1.2 million civil
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ACCSC Puts Atlantis University On Warning, Citing Compliance Issues
The accrediting agency ACCSC has placed Miami for-profit Atlantis University on warning status, a decision that bars the school from starting new academic programs or opening new locations pending a further review that could place the school in even bigger trouble. The accreditor’s action came just weeks after Atlantis withdrew its application with ACCSC to
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Grand Canyon U Says Feds Are Targeting It “Unjustly”
Giant career college Grand Canyon University, which boasts a student enrollment of 118,000 and receives more taxpayer-funded federal student aid than any other for-profit college in the country, has issued a lengthy press release charging that government officials “are coordinating efforts to unjustly target” the school. GCU asserts that officials at the U.S. Department of
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Perdoceo Chairman In Legal Dispute Over Daughter-in-Law’s Death
The executive chairman of Perdoceo, one of the nation’s largest taxpayer-funded for-profit college operations, has been sued by the parents of his daughter-in-law, two years after she was found dead from what authorities ruled a suicide. On August 8, Traci Phillips and Troy Pehrson, the parents of Tiffani Nelson, filed a civil complaint in District
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Dozens of Top Ex-Trump Aides Have Condemned Him. Biden? None.
Dozens of senior officials who served under Donald Trump during his presidency have since sharply criticized Trump for his conduct while in office. I’m not aware of any senior official who has served in the presidential administration of Joe Biden who has condemned him. UPDATE: A few days after we posted our article, “Dozens of
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New Gainful Employment Rule Is the Least We Can Do For Our Students
The U.S. Department of Education today issued a final “gainful employment” rule, aimed at ensuring that students who attend for-profit and career colleges get lasting value for their time and hard-earned money, and U.S. taxpayers get a real return on their own investment in student aid. On a call with reporters late today announcing the
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The Art Institutes, Long-Time Career College Operation, Dead at 103
The Art Institutes, a long-operating career college chain that developed a strong commitment to teaching but later devolved through a series of troublingly opportunistic owners into what the Justice Department called “a diploma mill,” says it has shut down for good. The school’s website says that effective September 30, the Art Institutes’ remaining eight campuses
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