Multistate lawsuit challenges $1 billion in federal education grant cuts. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel joined 14 other attorneys general in the lawsuit to stop the U.S. Department of Education from cutting funding to school-based mental health grants.

Background

The coalition called the cuts “unlawful” as the funding was already appropriated by the U.S. Congress for the grants. The White House is treating children’s lives as disposable by bypassing court orders and unlawfully terminating these grants, according to Nessel.

Michigan schools and universities are set to lose more than $6 million, while a total of $1 billion in funding is at risk for termination nationally by the end of July. The funding was first approved by Congress to fund positions for 14,000 mental health professionals in schools throughout the nation.

Department of Education Response

The Department of Education said the grants were funded under the “deeply flawed priorities” of the Biden administration. The grants are intended to improve American students’ mental health by funding additional mental health professionals in schools and on campuses.

However, the department claimed that grant recipients used the funding to implement race-based actions like recruiting quotas in ways that have nothing to do with mental health and could hurt the very students the grants are supposed to help.

Lawsuit Details

This is not the first lawsuit the federal government has faced over these proposed grant cuts. In July 2025, Nessel joined a coalition of attorneys general in suing the department. In December, the coalition secured a court order declaring the grant cancellations unlawful.

The order required the department to reconsider its decisions and permanently barred it from implementing the discontinuations “through any means.” The department has admitted most of the grants should have been continued, but they have nonetheless engaged in an ongoing campaign to hinder, threaten, and ultimately try to eliminate the mental health grants in Michigan and the other coalition states.

The attorneys general are seeking a preliminary injunction to these terminations, stating they filed this second lawsuit “protectively.” They allege the termination of the grants violate both the Administrative Procedure Act and the U.S. Constitution.

Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.