It is May 1st, the first day of Mental Health Awareness Month and what headline did I wake up to? This: Trump admin stops grant funding for school mental health : NPR. The grants came from the Safer Communities Act which was a bipartisan law passed in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting. Republicans supported it then and continue to support it. The Trump regime, however, is saying that it violates civil rights because the school districts have used DEI in hiring mental health professionals with the grants.
Trump’s explanation is, of course, complete BS. He knows as well as anyone that DEI doesn’t go against civil rights law. He knows it doesn’t threaten equality. He’s doing this for the same reasons he does everything. It’s going to hurt an already marginalized group, the mentally ill, and it’s going to further splinter the American people.
The thing is, the grant was an almost unqualified good. For $1 billion, they were placing about 14,000 mental health professionals in schools. $1 billion is a pittance in the scope of the federal budget. We can easily afford it. And the mental health professionals hired through the program would make students’ lives better.
Now, if the districts can’t come up with their own money, roughly 14,000 people will be out of work. There is already a shortage of mental health professionals. This will just exacerbate the problem. Trump’s action has the potential to destabilize classrooms and families. It’s a disaster waiting to happen.
Unfortunately, this is no surprise. It’s like the funding cuts to university research institutions, but it probably won’t get as much press. That’s why I’m writing this. To raise awareness. It is Mental Health Awareness Month after all.
