16 Democrat-Led States Sue Trump Admin Over Cuts to School Mental Health Funding

Trump administration officials say the funds were diverted to DEI initiatives unrelated to student mental health services.

New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks during a press conference in the Manhattan borough of New York City, on Feb. 16, 2024. David Dee Delgado/Reuters

A coalition of 16 Democrat-led states, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, has filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration over the Education Department’s termination of around $1 billion in mental health funding for schools, alleging the cuts are unlawful, unconstitutional, and ideologically driven.

The complaint, filed June 30 in U.S. District Court in Seattle, alleges that the Education Department unlawfully terminated grants under the Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant Program (MHSP) and the School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program (SBMH). The states argue the cuts violate the Administrative Procedure Act and are unconstitutional because they override Congress’s directive to ensure equitable access to education.

“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 said in a statement. “To eliminate these grants now would be a grave disservice to children and families.”

Congress established the grant programs in response to mass shootings in Parkland, Florida, and Uvalde, Texas. The programs aimed to place 14,000 new mental health professionals in schools, especially in low-income and rural areas. In the first year of the programs’ operation, nearly 775,000 students received services, and schools reported significant improvements, including a 50 percent drop in suicide risk and an 80 percent reduction in wait times for care, per data cited in the complaint.

“Despite these successes, on or about April 29, 2025, the Department decided to discontinue Program grants based on an alleged conflict with the current Administration’s priorities,” the complaint states.

The Education Department announced the cuts in April, citing concerns that the grants were used for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives unrelated to mental health services.

“Instead, under the deeply flawed priorities of the Biden Administration, grant recipients used the funding to implement race-based actions like recruiting quotas in ways that have nothing to do with mental health and could hurt the very students the grants are supposed to help,” Education Department spokesperson Madison Biedermann said in a statement to media outlets.

The grant cancellations were part of a broader push by the Trump administration to dismantle DEI programs across government agencies and educational institutions. On Jan. 21, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing federal educational entities to eliminate DEI policies, which he described as divisive and discriminatory.

“Illegal DEI and DEIA policies not only violate the text and spirit of our longstanding Federal civil-rights laws, they also undermine our national unity,” the order states, accusing such initiatives of promoting “an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system.”

However, the states argue in their lawsuit that DEI requirements were part of federal law and the criteria used to award the grants in the first place, citing the General Education Provisions Act’s Equity Directive that requires grantees to address barriers to “equitable participation,” including barriers based on race and gender. The complaint also alleges that the Education Department provided only boilerplate notices to grantees and failed to identify any performance issues that could justify canceling multi-year funding.

The attorneys general in the 16 states are asking the court to block the cuts, reinstate the grants, and prevent the Trump administration from imposing “similar ideological conditions” on grant applicants in the future.

The legal challenge was brought by New York, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin.

The Education Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.