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.
The Business of America is Debt
In the shoe department at Belk’s department store yesterday, a familiar thing: The sales guy was trying to convince us to get a Belk’s credit card, saying we would get a big discount on the shoes. We got to talking, and he mentioned that he was taking his first airplane flight ever in a couple
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Questioned by Education Dept., Accreditor ACCSC Attacked Its Critics
Faced with a directive from the U.S. Department of Education to defend its oversight of collapsed predatory college operation Center For Excellence in Higher Education (CEHE), the head of the accrediting agency ACCSC sharply attacked critics, saying their arguments were made “negligently” and were “unsupported by even a scintilla of the evidence.” The fiery response,
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Education Dept. Deal Ousts CEO Who Ran Florida Career College
The U.S. Department of Education has reached a deal with California-based International Education Corp. (IEC) that requires the “separation” from the company of its CEO, as well as its chief financial officer. The agreement, posted this morning on the Department’s website, also finalizes the termination of federal aid to IEC’s troubled for-profit Florida Career College
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Investor Report Highlights Abuses At Adtalem and Walden
A report released Tuesday by investment firm Safkhet Capital details predatory abuses at — and financial and regulatory perils now faced by — the for-profit college company Adtalem Global Education. Safkhet is headed by Fahmi Quadir, who has been nicknamed “The Assassin” for her record of aggressively targeting companies, notably Valeant Pharmaceuticals, whose stock she
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For-Profit College Operation Perdoceo Fails to Halt Fraud Lawsuit
Seeking dismissal of a lawsuit alleging that it abused students and defrauded taxpayers, the for-profit college company Perdoceo Education Corp. argued that a whistleblower’s allegations were stale because the same assertions were already made public — including in two articles published here on Republic Report. Unfortunately for Perdoceo, the federal judge hearing the case concluded
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Annals of State University Presidents Getting Suckered Into Buying Scam For-Profit Colleges
Email from Andrew Clark, the CEO of predatory for-profit Ashford University, to Robert Robbins, the president of actual University of Arizona, prior to merger: “Bobby… I’d like to begin developing a personal relationship with you and understand your vision for online learning at UofA.” C. Scott Green, president of actual University of Idaho, explaining in
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Florida Career College Says It’s Closing
Florida Career College, a chain of schools that offered programs in health care, business, and other fields but faced a cutoff of federal aid following an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education, announced this morning that it is shutting down for good. Addressing a meeting of the Florida state Commission on Independent Education this
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Cosmetology Schools Sue to Void Rule Aimed at Protecting Students From Heavy Debt
On December 22, the trade association American Association of Cosmetology Schools, along with Texas-based DuVall’s School of Cosmetology, sued the U.S. Department of Education, seeking to void the federal “gainful employment” rule, which aims to hold accountable those for-profit and career college programs that consistently leave graduates with debts they cannot afford to repay. After
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