Chicago – Attorney General Kwame Raoul, as part of a coalition of 16 attorneys general, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education for illegally discontinuing congressionally approved programs for mental health services in K-12 schools.
The Department of Education notified grantees in April that their programs now conflicted with the Trump administration’s priorities and funding would be discontinued. The department’s non-continuation decision means that countless students throughout Illinois will lose access to essential services from school-based mental health professionals. Just one of the many programs now canceled by the administration provided additional mental health services for more than 50,000 students in Illinois since the program’s outset. Without access to these critical funds, students across Illinois will face a shortage of mental health professionals who provide support and make schools safer.
“The Trump administration continues to unlawfully interfere with federal funding authorized by Congress, but this time, at the expense of our children’s mental health,” Raoul said. “Now more than ever, students in Illinois and across the country deserve the opportunity to see mental health professionals while they spend most of their days in school. I will continue to stand beside my colleagues to oppose illegal actions that directly impact our communities.”
After the 2023 tragic deaths of 19 students and two teachers during a mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, a bipartisan Congress appropriated $1 billion to permanently bring 14,000 mental health professionals into the schools that needed it the most. Since then, the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP), reported grantees served nearly 775,000 students and hired nearly 1,300 school mental health professionals during the first year of funding. 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.
Raoul and the coalition allege in the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, that the Department of Education’s grant non-continuations violate the Administrative Procedure Act and the U.S. Constitution. The attorneys general are asking a federal judge to rule that the non-continuations are illegal and seek an injunction rescinding the decisions.
Joining Raoul in filing the lawsuit are attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin.
