AG Brown-led coalition blocks federal cuts to school mental health grants

A U.S. District Court judge granted a temporary restraining order on Monday that blocks the U.S. Department of Education from unlawfully terminating congressionally approved school-based mental health grants. 

The order in the case led by Attorney General Nick Brown and a coalition of 14 state attorneys general comes just days before the Department of Education would have begun terminating up to nine grants providing critical mental health services to Washington public school students at the end of July. Terminating the grants would have resulted in the projected loss of $20 million in mental health services to Washington elementary and secondary school students over the remaining life of the grants.

“We have now beaten back multiple attempts by this administration to illegally gut funding for mental health in our schools,” Brown said. “This program was a promise to America’s youth that their needs would be supported, and we won’t let the President break it.”

In the wake of devastating school shootings, members of Congress from both parties came together to appropriate $1 billion to permanently bring 14,000 mental health professionals into U.S. schools most in need, especially in low-income and rural communities. The programs have been an incredible success. In their first year, the programs provided mental and behavioral health services to nearly 775,000 elementary and secondary students nationwide. Sampled projects showed real results: a 50% reduction in suicide risk at high-need schools, decreases in absenteeism and behavioral issues, and increases in positive student-staff engagement.

But over the past 15 months, the Department of Education has interfered with these goals by adding funding uncertainty and roadblocks that make it harder for grantees in Washington and the other coalition states to plan and perform their grant projects. In April 2025, the department notified these grantees that their grants would be discontinued for allegedly conflicting with the Trump administration's new priorities. The department later revealed the grants had been targeted for their perceived support for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

Washington has gone to court repeatedly to fight for these mental health grants and has won six favorable rulings against the administration so far. In July 2025, Brown led the coalition in filing a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington against the department over the discontinuation of the grants. In December 2025, the coalition secured an order declaring the department’s discontinuations were unlawful and requiring it to make new continuation decisions. The court also issued a permanent injunction that prohibited the department from implementing the discontinuations “through any means.”

The department claimed it planned to review the grants at the six-month mark and then make additional funding determinations. But instead, the department targeted the grants protected by the original injunction and announced they plan to terminate the grants altogether. 

Brown and the coalition filed a second lawsuit in July 2026 to obtain a new injunction that prevents these terminations that were scheduled to begin on July 31 from taking place.  

The temporary restraining order prevents the department from terminating the mental health grants using new priorities or without providing statutory procedural protections such as first working with the grantee to resolve any issues. The order will expire on August 24. In the meantime, the court is expected to schedule a hearing on a preliminary injunction, which would provide longer-term protection for grantees if ordered. 

Brown is joined in this suit by the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.

Read the order.

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