Attorney General Bonta Files Lawsuit to Protect Mental Health Grant Funds from Latest Trump Administration Termination Effort

Multistate coalition challenges Trump Administration’s attempt to circumvent court order by recharacterizing grant discontinuations as terminations

OAKLAND — As part of a coalition of 15 attorneys general, California Attorney General Rob Bonta today filed a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Department of Education's (the Department) latest attempt to terminate federal funding that helps schools recruit and train mental health professionals. Congress established the Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant Program and the School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program following the school shootings in Parkland, FL and Uvalde, TX to help address shortages of school-based counselors, psychologists, social workers, and other mental health professionals, particularly in high-need schools. After Attorney General Bonta and a coalition of attorneys general successfully blocked the Department’s earlier effort to discontinue these grants, the Department announced a new plan to end the funding under a different regulation, prompting today's lawsuit. In California, the Department's initial action threatened nearly $200 million in funding statewide. 

“The Trump Administration is once again trying to take critical mental health funding away from the schools that need it most,” said Attorney General Bonta. “Congress made clear that students across the country deserve access to these services. That’s why we’re going back to court.”

In July 2025, Attorney General Bonta and 15 other attorneys general filed a lawsuit challenging the Department’s discontinuation of the grants. The Department initially asserted that the grants conflicted with the Trump Administration’s new priorities because they support diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). A federal district court ruled in favor of the attorneys general, holding that the Department acted arbitrarily, capriciously, and contrary to law, and in December 2025, permanently enjoined the Department from implementing the grant terminations “through any means.” Though the Department appealed, the Ninth Circuit also twice denied the Department's requests to stay the district court’s orders while the appeal proceeded. Despite admitting that most of the grants should have been continued, the Department decided to only award grantees six months of funding instead of providing funding for the full year, as is standard practice, and to make grantees jump through unnecessary hoops to access funds. 

Even after the adverse court rulings, the Department announced a new attempt to terminate the grants under a different regulation. By calling this a termination rather than a discontinuation, the Administration seeks to circumvent the court’s order, which required them to continue these important mental health grants. Although Attorney General Bonta and the coalition continue to fight this attempt to circumvent the court’s order, they have filed this new lawsuit to prevent these planned terminations and cover any gaps that would threaten this funding. 

In today’s lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, the coalition argues that the Department's latest effort exceeds its legal authority, and threatens funding that schools use to provide mental health services for students. The attorneys general have also moved for a preliminary injunction to prevent the grants from being terminated.

In filing today’s lawsuit, Attorney General Bonta joins the attorneys general of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin.