Overview
- U.S. District Judge Kymberly Evanson issued a preliminary injunction on Oct. 27 that halts the early end of multiyear awards to roughly four dozen grantees across 15 states.
- The order also prevents the department from reallocating those specific awards through its reworked grant competition launched in September.
- Relief is limited to grantees that submitted declarations of harm, with restored funds including about $3.8 million in Madera County, Calif., and $8 million in Marin County, Calif.
- The court found the discontinuation decisions arbitrary and capricious, citing notices that lacked individualized reasoning and failed to show consideration of relevant data.
- The Education Department says it will appeal and defends its new approach, while the programs at issue—funded largely by $1 billion in the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act—have supported hiring and training of school mental health staff.