Education Department asks court’s permission to cancel mental health grants

SEATTLE (CN) — The U.S. Department of Education on Friday asked a federal judge to clarify whether an injunction bars it from terminating mental health grants rather than merely discontinuing grants.

“The terminations are under an entirely separate regulatory authority from that under consideration by the court in this case,” Brian Kipnis with the U.S. Attorney’s Office argued.

U.S. District Judge Kymberly Evanson blocked the Department of Education from discontinuing roughly $1 billion in school mental health grants in December, after finding a 16-state coalition had shown the department failed to follow the Administrative Procedure Act.

The injunction required the department to reconsider each grant using proper regulatory procedures and to base decisions on actual performance data rather than political preferences — namely adherence to the Trump administration’s views on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Now, the Education Department wants clarification from the court that Evanson’s order only restricts it from non-continuation instead of terminations, the latter of which it argues is guided by a separate provision.

“The precise basis for any of those terminations is something that we don’t know, but in any event, has nothing to do with Washington I,” Kipnis said, referring to Evanson’s earlier order.

The federal government argues that grant terminations were specifically excluded from Evanson’s preliminary injunction and any legal challenges to terminations would belong in the Court of Federal Claims.

“The department is not making unlawful continuation decisions by other means; it is simply terminating the grants under separate regulatory authority,” Kipnis said.

But the states disagreed and asked Evanson to issue an order clarifying the permanent injunction bars the department from terminating grants for the same reason it sought to discontinue grants: the purported failure to effectuate the Trump administration’s policy preferences.

“For the past seven months, defendants have continued to fight tooth and nail to stop funding our grants. Defendants’ efforts to make life miserable for our grantees has been extensively documented in our briefing on the two motions to enforce, and we see a pattern here,” said Jennifer Chung with the Washington State Attorney General’s Office.

Chung explained that the department has repeatedly missed its own deadlines to make continuation decisions and urged the court to enter an order that clarifies grant terminations based on the department’s new priorities that have not gone through notice and comment rulemaking would violate the injunction.

“Defendants are trying to wear our grantees down, and unfortunately, these tactics are working,” Chung said, noting that several grantees have voluntarily terminated their deadlines.

After the department filed the motion for clarification and seeking permission to terminate the grants, the coalition of states filed a new suit earlier this month asking the court to block the department from terminating any of the protected grants.

“Once again, defendants are disregarding the laws so they can end funding for grants that they’ve tagged as supporting DEI,” said Ellen Range with the Washington Attorney General’s Office.

Range clarified the states didn’t file a new suit to contest grant terminations or get them reinstated, but rather to prevent the implementation of a “plan that is plainly illegal.”

But the government argued the states can’t challenge an action that hasn’t yet occurred.

“Rather than putting forth any evidence, they simply hypothesize that the terminations will be illegal and ask for relief on that basis,” Kipnis said.

Evanson told the parties she would issue an opinion as soon as she can.

The case is focused on two grant programs: the Mental Health Professional Demonstration Grant Program and the School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program. Both received steadily increasing appropriations from Congress over several years.

The grant programs at issue were created by Congress in 2018 and 2020, spurred by episodes of devastating school shootings. The multiyear grants are intended to address the shortage of school-based mental health service providers in low-income schools and to permanently bring 14,000 additional mental health professionals into U.S. schools that need them most.

In their first year alone, the programs provided mental and behavioral health services to nearly 775,000 elementary and secondary students nationwide, and they have resulted in a 50% reduction in suicide risk at high-need schools, decreases in absenteeism and behavioral issues and increases in positive student-staff engagement, the states claimed.

Last February, the Education Department issued what it called a “Directive on Grant Priorities,” announcing it would review all existing grants based on the current administration’s policy preferences. By April, most grant recipients in the plaintiff states received notices that their funding would be terminated.