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BALTIMORE, MD – A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from unlawfully cutting some congressionally approved funding for K-12 mental health programs after a coalition of 16 state attorneys general, including Attorney General Brown, filed suit in June.
On October 21, U.S. District Court Judge Kymberly Evanson rejected the U.S. Department of Education’s motion to dismiss the case. In a preliminary injunction issued today, she said the department appears to have acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner, violating the Administrative Procedure Act. Evanson limited her injunction to grantees that had submitted declarations to the court explaining how they’d been harmed by the cuts.
The attempted cuts targeted a bipartisan act of Congress that appropriated $1 billion for mental health support in schools after the tragic deaths of 19 students and 2 teachers during a mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. During the first year of funding, grantees served nearly 775,000 students and hired nearly 1,300 school mental health professionals, according to the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP). NASP also found a 50% reduction in suicide risk at high-need schools, decreases in absenteeism and behavioral issues, and increases in positive student-staff engagement based on data from sampled programs.
Despite the clear benefits of these programs, on April 29, the Department of Education sent boilerplate notices to grantees claiming that their grants now conflicted with the Trump administration’s priorities and funding would be discontinued. In Maryland, Bowie State University and the University of Maryland Baltimore faced a combined loss of nearly $5 million in funding, which supports dozens of graduate and undergraduate students training in social work and school counseling. The injunction won in this case protects these programs, which serve as a vital pipeline for school counselors and other education professionals entering Maryland’s K-12 schools.
“This ruling protects critical mental health programs that serve Maryland students, including programs at Bowie State University and the University of Maryland at Baltimore that train school counselors who help children in our highest-need K-12 schools,” said Attorney General Brown. “The Trump administration’s unlawful and unconscionable attempt to cut these programs would have put our children at risk, and though this injunction is temporary, we will continue fighting to defend every dollar of funding that keeps Maryland students safe.”
The attorneys general filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. The complaint alleges that the Department of Education’s funding cuts violate the Administrative Procedure Act and the U.S. Constitution.
Joining Attorney General Brown in the lawsuit were the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin.
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