Dive Brief:
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The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week blocked the U.S. Department of Education's push to cancel mental health funds for schools, securing another victory for 16 states that sued the department in 2025 to reinstate the funding.
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Following an October district court permanent injunction against the cancellations in Washington v. U.S. Department of Education, the Education Department appealed to the 9th Circuit. However, the 9th Circuit said in its decision last week that the department "failed to make a strong showing that it engaged in the reasoned decision-making required" to, among other things, notify recipients why their multi-year grants were being discontinued.
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While the district court’s permanent injunction does not require the department to release any funds to the suing states, it does mean the agency has to make new decisions on whether to continue to discontinue recipients' grants.
Dive Insight:
Last year, the Education Department abruptly cancelled a slew of federal grants worth nearly $1 billion that had been approved in fiscal years 2022, 2023 and 2024 under the School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program and the Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant Program, saying they conflicted with Trump administration priorities.
Some of the recipients' original grant applications mentioned diversifying mental health providers and supports, for example, in accordance with priorities under the Biden administration. But that language caught the attention of the current administration, which has made it a priority to stamp out any focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.
After the Education Department canceled the grants in April, it eight months later issued new priorities and distributed over $208 million — significantly less than the nearly $1 billion it had cancelled — in new mental health grants.
But even as the Education Department pushed forward with its new grants and priorities, a federal judge a week later ordered the permanent reinstatement of Education Department mental health grants in the 16 suing states. It was that court order that the 9th Circuit upheld last week.
The Education Department did not respond to K-12 Dive's request for comment Friday.
The department recently stepped back from at least two lawsuits that it had already appealed, one related to its DEI policies and another related to the 2025 layoffs of a significant chunk of its workforce.
Since January 2025, more than 620 lawsuits have been filed against the Trump administration’s policies and practices, according to an analysis released in January by Democracy Forward. Many of those lawsuits have come in the education sphere. The Democracy Forward analysis showed the administration to be on the losing side of 70% to 80% of the court orders to date.
At least 35 lawsuits have been filed related to K-12 against the administration based on its executive orders and guidance documents, according to a Brookings tracker last updated Feb. 3.
