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.

July 1, 2021

Non-Profit Keiser University Touts Jobs at For-Profit School Owned by Keiser Family

On this website, we’ve highlighted many ways that Floridian Arthur Keiser, the “Chancellor and CEO” of Keiser University, appears to have leveraged his control of that multi-campus non-profit school to make big money for himself. In addition, a front-page New York Times article, a complaint filed with the IRS, extensive research by The Century Foundation,
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June 21, 2021

Keep Biden’s Promise: End Federal Aid for Predatory Colleges

The U.S. Department of Education began public hearings this morning on what new rules it should consider regarding higher education. I just addressed the meeting, and here’s what I said: The Biden-Harris campaign promised their administration would “require for-profit [colleges] to first prove their value to the U.S. Department of Education before gaining eligibility for
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June 16, 2021

Gov. Whitman, Retired Generals Call on EPA to Protect Against Chemical Plant Disasters

Today, former EPA administrator and New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman, retired generals Russel Honoré and Randy Manner, former EPA official Robert Bostock, and I, submitted a comment to the Environmental Protection Agency urging it to strengthen rules to make U.S. chemical plants less vulnerable to potentially catastrophic explosions and toxic releases.  Here’s what we
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June 8, 2021

Rep. Scott Demands Halt to For-Profit College Conversions to Non-Profit

Pushing forward with oversight of controversial conversions of for-profit colleges to non-profits, House Education and Labor Committee chair Bobby Scott (D-VA) has written to Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, calling on the Department of Education and the Internal Revenue Service to “take steps to reform their processes and halt the approval of all conversions until
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June 2, 2021

Zovio Adds Board Members As Deceptions At Arizona Global Campus Persist

————————– Zovio, the long-time corporate operator of for-profit, online Ashford University, which has repeatedly faced law enforcement actions for deceiving and abusing low-income students, has added two members to its board of directors: John S. Wilson, the former president of Morehouse College, and Ron Huberman, the ex-superintendent of Chicago’s public schools. Zovio recently made a
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April 27, 2021

Accountability for CEHE College Chain Is Long Overdue

Late last week, as we were the first to report, college overseer ACCSC terminated the accreditation of online career college Independence University, the main school now operated by the non-profit Center for Excellence in Higher Education (CEHE), and the U.S. Department of Education suspended from federal contracting Eric Juhlin, CEHE’s CEO. These were positive developments,
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April 23, 2021

Breaking: Citing Performance Failures, Accreditor Dumps Independence University

After years of warnings, college accreditor ACCSC Thursday finally withdrew accreditation from the career college operation Center For Excellence in Higher Education (CEHE), which operates Independence University and other schools. In a letter dated April 22, ACCSC informed CEHE’s CEO, Eric Juhlin, that Independence University, the only CEHE school not in the process of closing,
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April 21, 2021

Falsehood-Filled Website On For-Profit Colleges Shuts Down

Around March 31, a non-profit organization called Consumer Action for a Strong Economy (CASE), which has regularly attacked regulators and opponents of controversial corporations, posted a website making false attacks on critics, including me, of predatory for-profit colleges. The website’s phony claims centered on a false and long-ago-debunked charge that Obama administration officials and advocates
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