Trump Administration Halts $1 Billion in School Mental Health Funding

Because of worries about diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) programs in the contracts, the Department of Education has chosen not to give schools another $1 billion for mental health.

The money came from a gun violence bill that was signed into law by former President Biden. The bill allowed schools to hire counselors and mental health workers for their students.

“These grants will pay for more mental health professionals to work in schools and on campuses to improve the mental health of American students.” The priorities of the Biden administration were very bad, and grant recipients used the money to do racist things like hiring quotas. These actions had nothing to do with mental health and could hurt the students the grants are meant to help, according to Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the Education Department.

She went on to say, “We owe it to American families to make sure that tax dollars are going to practices that have been shown to help students’ mental health.”

Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist, was the first person to report the story on the social media site X. He used quotes from the grant documents that set goals to hire a certain amount of counselors from minority and diverse backgrounds.

Rufo said that the funds “were being used to promote racism and left-wing nationalism.” There should be no more “slush funds” for campaigners that are said to be for mental health.

In a memo to members of Congress, the Department of Education said it would do more to help kids’ mental health.

The notice says, “The Department plans to re-envision and re-compete its mental health program funds to better support students’ mental health needs.”

This comes after the Education Department cut millions of dollars in funding for study into education because of what they thought were DEI programs.

This month, the Supreme Court agreed with the government agency and stopped millions of dollars in grants to programs that prepare teachers that the Education Department said included certain DEI projects.