Sixteen states sued the Trump administration on Monday, accusing the Department of Education of unlawfully terminating more than $1 billion in bipartisan federal funding for school-based mental health services.
The lawsuit — filed by Democratic attorneys general from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin — said the federal government had violated the Administrative Procedure Act when it canceled the appropriated funding this year. The APA has been routinely cited in court by those challenging President Donald Trump’s aggressive use of executive power during his second term.
The grants were part of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a 2022 gun safety bill passed by Congress and signed by then-President Joe Biden after a teen gunman in Uvalde, Texas, killed 19 elementary school students and two teachers and injured 17 others.
On the heels of that tragedy, Democrats and Republicans set aside more than $1 billion to provide students access to mental health services. The ultimate goal was to permanently bring 14,000 additional mental health professionals into schools across the country, primarily in low-income and rural communities.
However, this year, the Department of Education announced it would stop paying out those grants, as part of the administration’s efforts to crack down on programs it deems related to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. On April 29, the Education Department sent letters to hundreds of funding recipients, notifying them that their mental health programs constituted an “inappropriate use of federal funds” and “violated civil rights laws.”
“By cutting funding for these lifesaving youth mental health programs, the Department of Education is abandoning our children when they need us most,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is listed on the lawsuit, said in a statement on Tuesday. “These grants have helped thousands of students access critical mental health services at a time when young people are facing record levels of depression, trauma, and anxiety,” James continued. “To eliminate these grants now would be a grave disservice to children and families in New York and nationwide, and my office is fighting back to preserve these much-needed programs.” The Education Department did not immediately respond to MSNBC’s request for comment on Tuesday.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW.
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