Professor Jessica Heldman ’04 (JD) Quoted in The Washington Times
SAN DIEGO (October 16, 2025) – University of San Diego (USD) School of Law Children’s Advocacy Institute’s (CAI) Executive Director and Fellmeth-Peterson Associate Professor in Child Rights Jessica Heldman, was quoted in a story in The Washington Times titled, “Gavin Newsom vetoes Calfornia bill allowing social-media companies to be sued for users’ threats.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed SB 771 (Stern), which would have allowed victims of violent online threats to sue social media companies like Meta, Google, and X for using algorithms that enable and promote such harassment. Newsom said the proposal was “premature,” arguing that the state should first assess whether existing civil rights laws adequately address online abuses before exposing tech firms to costly lawsuits. The bill, which passed the legislature, proposed civil penalties of up to $1 million per threat and $500,000 for reckless violations. Supporters, including child safety and civil rights advocates, viewed it as a necessary step to curb hate-driven digital harm.
Jessica Heldman, executive director of the USD School of Law’s CAI, which co-sponsored the bill, said Mr. Newsom’s failure to build on other state laws regulating social media “deeply disappointed” her.
“We do earnestly hope that the governor next year will propose bills on all these topics…so that before he leaves office, among his legacies will be that no child or adult will place their lives at risk just by logging onto a computer,” Ms. Heldman said in a statement.
Read the full article in The Washington Times.
About the Children’s Advocacy Institute
The Children's Advocacy Institute (CAI), founded at the nonprofit University of San Diego School of Law in 1989, is one of the nation's premiere academic, research, and advocacy organizations working to improve the lives of children and youth, with special emphasis on improving the child protection and foster care systems and enhancing resources that are available to youth aging out of foster care.
In its academic component, CAI trains law students and attorneys to be effective child advocates throughout their legal careers. Its Child Advocacy Clinic gives USD Law students three distinct clinical opportunities to advocate on behalf of children and youth, and its Dependency Counsel Training Program provides comprehensive training to licensed attorneys engaged in or contemplating Dependency Court practice.
CAI's research and advocacy component, conducted through its offices in San Diego, Sacramento, and Washington, D.C., seeks to leverage change for children and youth through impact litigation, regulatory and legislative advocacy, and public education. Active primarily at the federal and state levels, CAI's efforts are multi-faceted—comprehensively and successfully embracing all tools of public interest advocacy to improve the lives of children and youth. To support CAI’s work, please visit law.sandiego.edu/caigift.
About the University of San Diego School of Law
Each year, USD educates approximately 800 Juris Doctor and graduate law students from throughout the United States and around the world. The law school is best known for its offerings in the areas of business and corporate law, constitutional law, intellectual property, international and comparative law, public interest law and taxation.
USD School of Law is one of the 88 law schools elected to the Order of the Coif, a national honor society for law school graduates. The law school’s faculty is a strong group of outstanding scholars and teachers with national and international reputations and currently ranks 34th nationally among U.S. law faculties in scholarly impact and 37th nationally in past-year faculty downloads on the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN). The school is accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools. Founded in 1954, the law school is part of the University of San Diego, a private, independent, Roman Catholic university chartered in 1949.