The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Dec. 4 declined a request from the federal government to block a district court order requiring it to continue providing grants to school mental health workers.
The grants, which have been issued by the Department of Education under the Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant Program and School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program, are worth approximately $1 billion and fund “high-need, low-income, and rural schools” in their efforts to improve student mental health, according to the plaintiffs’ initial complaint. The Trump administration had discontinued the grants on April 29, citing their alleged use of “diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)” practices that the administration has tried to purge from the federal government.
After 16 Democrat-led states sued the department, a U.S. district judge in Washington on Oct. 27 issued a preliminary injunction against the discontinuation, which only applies to those states and not to Republican-led states that have declined to sue. The federal government appealed that decision on Nov. 12 and asked, pending that appeal, that a temporary stay be imposed.
The Court of Appeals, however, declined to impose the stay, which means that the grant money must continue flowing to the states that have sued. The Epoch Times was unable to obtain a copy of any order denying the stay, which has not been uploaded onto the Public Access to Court Electronic Records database.
“It’s a relief to students and their families that a large number of these programs are shielded for now,” Nick Brown, the attorney general of Washington, who is leading the lawsuit, wrote after the preliminary injunction was issued. “We’ll continue this fight in court until the administration agrees to follow the law and the will of Congress in supporting the mental health of young Americans.”
The other states that are party to the suit, where the grant money will resume as a result of the appellate court’s order, are California, Colorado, Delaware, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.
The denial of an administrative stay does not necessarily mean the injunction will stand. It is merely a temporary measure that gives the appellate court more time to consider the merits of the appeal without disrupting the parties to the controversy. The Ninth Circuit will still have to hear a full appeal of the injunction.
The federal government has not commented on whether it will seek to vacate the stay.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
