Due to concerns regarding diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the contracts, the Department of Education has decided not to renew $1 billion in mental health funding for schools.
The funds was provided by a bipartisan gun violence bill that former President Biden signed into law, which allowed schools to hire counselors and mental health professionals for pupils.
“These grants are intended to improve American students’ mental health by funding additional mental health professionals in schools and on campuses. 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,” Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the Education Department stated.
“We owe it to American families to ensure that tax-payer dollars are supporting evidence-based practices that are truly focused on improving students’ mental health,” she continued.
Conservative activist Christopher Rufo broke the story first on the social media site X. He included quotes from the grant documents, which outline targets to recruit a specific number of diverse and minority counselors for schools.
According to Rufo, the grants “were being used to advance left-wing racialism and discrimination. No more slush fund for activists under the guise of mental health.”
The Department of Education stated it would provide additional support for students’ mental health in a memo to members of Congress.
“The Department plans to re-envision and re-compete its mental health program funds to more effectively support students’ behavioral health needs,” according to the notice.
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The action follows the Education Department’s decision to slash millions of dollars in funding for education research because to suspected DEI initiatives.
The Supreme Court backed with the government agency earlier this month, permitting the blocking of millions of dollars in grants to teacher preparation programs that the Education Department claimed incorporated specific DEI initiatives.
