27 Facts About Jim Steyer

James Pearson Steyer is an American civil rights attorney, professor, and author.

Jim Steyer has two brothers: Hume Steyer and Tom Steyer.

Jim Steyer was highly influenced by his mother, who would sometimes bring him to class as her teaching assistant.

Jim Steyer graduated early from Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and worked with his mother teaching remedial reading at a public school in Harlem.

Jim Steyer later graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University where he was awarded the Lindsey Peters Award for Outstanding Work in American Government.

Jim Steyer then served as a civil rights attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

Jim Steyer has been teaching courses as an adjunct professor at Stanford University in political science, education, civil rights and civil liberties for 35 years.

Jim Steyer founded his first child advocacy venture, Children Now, in 1988.

Shortly after starting Children Now, Jim Steyer noticed a serious need for high-quality educational TV programs for kids.

In 2011, the New York Times reported that Jim Steyer was helping build the Center for the Next Generation, a nonprofit that aims to influence public policy debates focused on national children's and energy issues.

Jim Steyer was a partner with Hillary Clinton on the Too Small to Fail initiative.

That same year, Jim Steyer launched the Common Sense Kids campaign through Common Sense Media creating "a mass army for kids" by focusing on children's issues in the political field.

Jim Steyer launched the Future of Tech Commission with former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings as co-chairs, in April 2021.

Jim Steyer's advocacy has reached tens of millions of parents a month in articles, reviews and advice columns.

In 2023, Jim Steyer was a speaker at SXSW, representing Common Sense Media in the panel discussion How Teens Really Feel About Social Media.

Jim Steyer was a featured speaker at the 2023 Aspen Ideas Festival.

In 2014, Jim Steyer supported California's "Eraser Bill", which lets California children under 18 remove their postings from social media websites.

In 2016, Jim Steyer led Common Sense to launch Common Sense Legislative Ratings in an effort to publicize legislative bills that would help children and expose bills that could harm them.

Jim Steyer has called for updates to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, calling the time of the act's creation "the stone age of digital media" and pointing out the lack at the time of platforms such as Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

Common Sense and Jim Steyer sponsored the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 which guarantees new data privacy rights for the state's consumers, with extra protections for kids under 16.

Also in 2018 Jim Steyer joined with former Google employee Tristan Harris and Facebook investor Roger McNamee on the "Truth About Tech" campaign.

On 25 September 2020, Jim Steyer was named as one of the 25 members of the "Real Facebook Oversight Board", an independent monitoring group over Facebook.

Jim Steyer is the author of The Other Parent: The Inside Story of the Media's Effect on Our Children.

In 2012, Jim Steyer released Talking Back to Facebook, a book that deals with the presence of digital media in the lives of children.

In 2020, Jim Steyer authored Which Side of History: How Technology is Reshaping Democracy and Our Lives.

Jim Steyer's wife is the Director of the California Institute on Law, Neuroscience and Education, an interdisciplinary research and policy institute funded by the state of California.

Jim Steyer worked with the Glide Foundation to redesign their services for women and families.