WASHINGTON – The Trump administration abruptly cancelled roughly $1 billion in federal grants aimed at helping schools hire and train therapists.
Hundreds of funding recipients across the country received letters April 29 from the U.S. Department of Education informing them that their mental health programs violated civil rights laws.
Some constituted an “inappropriate use of federal funds,” according to the letter.
“The grant is therefore inconsistent with, and no longer effectuates, the best interest of the Federal Government and will not be continued,” says the letter, which was signed by Murray Bessette, a senior advisor at the Education Department.
The Trump administration confirmed April 30 that it discontinued $1 billion in grants that supported school-based mental health programs. The grants ran afoul of their intended purpose, said Madi Biedermann, a spokesperson for the Education Department, and were part of the “deeply flawed priorities of the Biden administration.”
Specifically, the Trump administration took issue with programs for educating mental health professionals about systemic racism and training therapists to focus on race-related stress and trauma, among other things.
