Survivors spoke but now the system is silencing them

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OPINION – For a brief moment, it felt like the world had changed. The #MeToo movement cracked open the silence around power. Harvey Weinstein was led into court. Jeffrey Epstein’s empire collapsed. Studios, networks, and boardrooms scrambled to prove they had learned something. For once, the powerful were made to answer.

But power has a long memory and a short attention span. A few years later, we are watching the same stories replay in reverse. Abusers rebrand as victims of “cancel culture.” The wealthy and connected hire crisis-PR firms, launch podcasts, and turn accountability into content. And while we were distracted by celebrity redemption arcs, the government learned the same trick.

Here in California, Los Angeles County has borrowed that playbook.

In 2019, California passed the Child Victims Act, reopening the courthouse doors to survivors of childhood sexual abuse whose cases had expired under old statutes of limitation. It was a simple, moral correction. Thousands came forward. In Los Angeles County, those lawsuits revealed decades of abuse inside juvenile detention centers that were supposed to protect children.

By 2025, the County agreed to a four-billion-dollar settlement covering roughly 6,800 claims. It was one of the largest settlements in state history, and one of the least examined. Instead of explaining how such horror went unchecked for so long, County officials turned to public relations. In the Los Angeles Times, they said the real problem was “bad lawyers filing bad cases.” They also told the paper that “a lack of records hampered the County’s ability to assess the validity of allegations, the sheer number of cases, and court-ordered limits on legal discovery.”

To be clear, if some attorneys filed fraudulent cases, those should be investigated in court, not in headlines. That is what discovery is for. But instead of vetting claims through due process, the County used the possibility of a few bad filings to discredit thousands of legitimate ones. The same officials who ignored abuse for decades now claim moral authority to police survivors’ lawyers.

That is not an excuse. The missing records and the lack of discovery are proof of the failure, not its defense. If officials had wanted real accountability, they could have created an independent review panel, preserved personnel records, and worked with outside investigators to trace patterns of abuse. Instead, they signed confidentiality agreements and moved on.

The result is a four-billion-dollar settlement that delivered no answers and protected no one but the institution itself.

In Sacramento, the same impulse has found a home in Senate Bill 577. The bill would make it harder for survivors to sue public institutions by raising the burden of proof for older victims and removing treble-damage penalties for public entities that cover up abuse. And now Assemblymember Chris Ward (D-San Diego)) is secretly trying to push for more legislation that is hostile to survivors.

Fiscal relief for whom? For the agencies that hired and protected abusers. SB 577 doesn’t create justice; it limits the consequences of injustice. It reframes decades of neglect as a budgeting problem.

On October 16, 2025, five survivor advocacy organizations, including Stand with Survivors and Global Hope 365, sent a letter to Attorney General Rob Bonta demanding a full investigation into decades of sexual abuse in Los Angeles County’s youth detention system. They asked the questions every public official should have asked long ago: Who allowed this to happen, who protected the abusers, and why were they never held accountable?

Those questions are simple. They are also still unanswered.

The lesson of #MeToo was never just about individual abusers. It was about the systems that protected them. Hollywood had to learn that lesson in public. The government is still learning it in private.

Los Angeles County has a chance to lead differently. Voters should demand transparency: a full accounting of who knew what, when, and how many predators were shielded by bureaucracy. They should support survivors’ call for Attorney General Bonta to investigate the County’s secrecy and silence.

Fairness is not about protecting budgets. It is about responsibility for making sure those who ignored or enabled abuse finally face consequences.

If we accept the County’s spin, SB 577 becomes proof that in California, image still matters more than accountability, and survivors pay the price.

California promised survivors a chance to be heard. Los Angeles County promised taxpayers accountability. Both promises still stand. Fair is fair, but this time, fairness must belong to the people, not the powerful.

Caroline Heldman is the co-founder of Stand with Survivors, a political science professor, and media commentator.