by Anna Claire Vollers, Oregon Capital Chronicle
July 10, 2026
Fifteen states on Friday sued the Trump administration to prevent millions of dollars in cuts to school-based mental health funding.
The new lawsuit is part of an ongoing legal battle between Democratic-led states and the U.S. Department of Education over a mental health grant program that Congress established following the 2018 school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
At stake is a $1 billion program that offers grants to school districts across the country to help them hire and train more mental health professionals to work in schools.
Democratic attorneys general in 15 states say the Trump administration, in defiance of a December 2025 court order, plans to unlawfully terminate the grants at the end of this month, resulting in millions in lost funding.
“Our children deal with a unique set of problems which arise from growing up in 2026 — from loneliness to substance use disorder to the ever-present fear of violence — and the programs funded through these grants are designed to help them cope and hopefully thrive,” said Rhode Island Attorney General Peter F. Neronha, a Democrat, in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
In 2022, after a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, claimed the lives of 19 students and two teachers, Congress allocated $1 billion to the Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant Program to increase the number of school-based mental health professionals.
That funding effort was bipartisan; at the time Republican U.S. senators including John Cornyn of Texas, Susan Collins of Maine and Thom Tillis of North Carolina publicly supported it. And within a year, the grants had funded mental and behavioral health services to nearly 775,000 students nationwide.
But in April 2025, under President Donald Trump, the U.S. Department of Education told grantees the funding would be halted because their programs conflicted with Trump administration priorities. At that time, the grants were supporting efforts in 49 states to prepare thousands of mental health professionals to work in K-12 schools.
Trump administration officials told the media that the grants were cut over what the administration saw as connections to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
A coalition of 17 Democratic state attorneys general sued last July, and a court ruled in their favor, ordering the Trump administration to stop the grant discontinuation. In the months since the order, the education department has threatened to withhold funding or terminate the grants altogether.
The Democratic attorneys general said they filed the new lawsuit to cover gaps in the previous court order that could allow the Trump administration to follow through on its desire to halt the funding.
“The courts have repeatedly ruled that the Trump Administration does not have the power to arbitrarily revoke grant funding that provides critical mental health services to our students,” said Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, a Democrat, in a statement about joining the lawsuit.
“Still, the federal government continues its attempts to terminate funding.”
Stateline reached out to the U.S. Department of Education for comment but did not receive a response before publication.
Attorneys general participating in the lawsuit are from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin.
Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at [email protected]
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Oregon Capital Chronicle, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Julia Shumway for questions: [email protected].