{"id":76553,"date":"2025-12-20T15:31:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T15:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/76553\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T15:31:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T15:31:14","slug":"family-defense-clinic-achieves-legislative-reform-of-child-abuse-reporting-in-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/76553\/","title":{"rendered":"Family Defense Clinic achieves legislative reform of child abuse reporting in New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Governor Kathy Hochul of New York signed the Anti-Harassment in Reporting bill into law on December 19, it marked the culmination of a four-year, coordinated effort on the part of NYU Law\u2019s Family Defense Clinic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The new law requires callers to New York State\u2019s child maltreatment hotline to identify themselves when reporting alleged abuse or neglect. The identity of the caller will remain confidential, but it is no longer possible for an adult to trigger a Child Protective Services (CPS) investigation anonymously. With the signing of the bill, New York becomes only the second state\u2014Texas was the first\u2014to ban anonymous reporting.<\/p>\n

\"Christine<\/p>\n

Chris Gottlieb ’97<\/p>\n

\u201cThese investigations are very, very invasive and disturbing to the kids,\u201d says Professor Chris Gottlieb<\/a> \u201997, the director of the Family Defense Clinic. \u201cAllowing anonymous reports was allowing people to abuse the system and call in maliciously false reports.\u201d Anonymous reports have triggered investigations of more than 10,000 New York families annually, with 86 percent determined to be unfounded at the close of the investigation, and with more parents ultimately cleared of wrongdoing after review. The majority are families of color. An investigation by ProPublica in 2023 indicated that \u201cthe hotline had been weaponized by jealous exes, spiteful landlords, and others who endlessly called in baseless allegations.\u201d According to ProPublica, the investigations sometimes included strip searches of children.<\/p>\n

The passage of the bill marks the clinic\u2019s third successful legislative impact project in recent years. In 2020, New York passed a bill reforming the procedures used by the State Central Register of Child Abuse and Maltreatment. Two years later, Hochul signed the Parental Equity Act, which gave unwed fathers the same opportunity to maintain rights to their children that was afforded to married fathers and to mothers of any marital status; for decades, that had not been the case. The Family Defense Clinic spearheaded those legislative efforts and the most recent one in collaboration with a coalition of community activists, family defenders, and social workers advocating for change.<\/p>\n

Gottlieb says that, while individual client defense work is still at the core of the clinic\u2019s mission, \u201cthe clinic has expanded what we\u2019re doing more affirmatively\u2014through impact litigation, narrative shifting, and legislative work\u2014as the family defense field becomes more dynamic.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Family Defense Clinic\u2019s efforts to make the anti-harassment legislation a reality commenced in 2021. Over three academic years, clinic students brought together stakeholders, compiled research for legislators, and helped develop testimony to lawmakers in support of the bill. All those efforts paid off in June 2025 when both houses of the state legislature passed the bill by large margins. That decisive legislative win was followed by months of negotiation over minor amendments before the bill finally reached the governor\u2019s desk in December.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s fair to say we had a really effective campaign of educating the governor on this,\u201d says Gottlieb. \u201cThey told me they had never had a bill for which they had been contacted by such a diverse set of motivated advocates and community groups. That was gratifying to hear.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the four-year effort to pass the Anti-Harassment in Reporting bill has crossed the finish line, the clinic continues to pursue the passage of another bill\u2014requiring CPS investigators to notify parents and caretakers of their rights\u2014that has also been in its sights for several years. \u201cOne lesson here,\u201d says Gottlieb, \u201cis that nothing happens quickly in Albany.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Governor Kathy Hochul of New York signed the Anti-Harassment in Reporting bill into law on December 19,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-76553","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-staten-island","12":"tag-staten-island-headlines","13":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}