The Trump administration this week slashed $1 billion in so-called “mental health” grants for educational institutions, many of which were going to promote leftist ideology and train leftist activists.
The Education Department confirmed Wednesday that it was making cuts to grants handed out by the Biden administration ostensibly for the purpose of “mental health” because of the focus of many of the recipients on racially-focused programs. In a notice to Congress, the administration said it was going to “re-envision and re-compete” the funds allocated for mental health at schools in a gun control bill signed by former President Joe Biden.
“These grants are intended to improve American students’ mental health by funding additional mental health professionals in schools and on campuses,” Deputy Assistant Secretary for Communications Madison Biedermann said. “Instead, under the deeply flawed priorities of the Biden Administration, 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.”
The move was first reported on Tuesday by Christopher Rufo, who wrote on X that there would be “no more slush fund for activists under the guise of mental health.”
In March, the conservative organization Defending Education put out a report finding that the Department of Education had given at least $100,964,880 in grants to 25 universities to increase their social worker training programs ostensibly for the purpose of mental health. Defending Education found that many of these grants were going to programs steeped in leftist ideology.
This money was allocated through the Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant Program and the School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program.
For example, Portland State University was awarded $1,189,801 by the Department of Education to increase the number of social workers. DEI principles are built into the school’s Master of Social Work program, the stated goal of which is to train social workers to dismantle “systems of oppression; build[] racial equity and social, political, and economic justice.”
“The grants were meant to support school counselors and mental health staff. In reality, they became a pipeline for training activist educators steeped in DEI, CRT, and gender ideology. Federal dollars went to universities pushing ‘anti-racist social-emotional learning’ and racially preferential hiring,” said Defending Education President Nicki Neily on Thursday. “Parents want real support for children in crisis, not counselors or social workers trained to divide, shame, and re-educate. Good on the Trump administration for ending this. Now, let’s make sure the replacements actually serve students.”
