15 States Sue to Block Education Department’s Planned Cuts to School Mental‑Health Grants

Overview

• A coalition of 15 state attorneys general filed a lawsuit Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and asked for a preliminary injunction to stop the Education Department from terminating the grants at the end of July.
• The legal fight follows an April 2025 notice to grantees, a December 2025 federal ruling that found that discontinuation unlawful and permanently enjoined terminations “through any means,” and repeated denials of the department’s stay requests by the Ninth Circuit.
• States say the department has tried to sidestep the court by reclassifying its earlier discontinuations as regulatory “terminations,” while providing only six months of funding and adding extra paperwork that could block access to remaining money.
• The grants come from a roughly $1 billion congressional program created after mass school shootings and served about 775,000 students in the first year, funding counselors, psychologists, and training programs that state officials say cut suicide risk and improved attendance.
• If the courts do not block the planned terminations, states warn immediate shortfalls could hit campus training programs and K–12 services, and the case will test whether an agency can end congressionally funded grants by recharacterizing its actions.