Graduate students training to become school counselors at UW Tacoma will keep their clinical placements, and the mental health professionals their program feeds into low-income Tacoma-area schools will keep their salaries — at least through Monday, August 24.

A federal judge in Seattle granted a temporary restraining order on Tuesday, July 28, blocking the U.S. Department of Education from terminating more than $20 million in mental health grants to nine Washington schools, including UW Tacoma.

The grants fund two programs Congress created after the 2018 Parkland school shooting: one pays for graduate students' clinical training in low-income schools, and the other covers salaries for mental health professionals once they graduate.

What the grants do

The two programs — the School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program and the Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant Program — together represent more than $1 billion nationally.

Their congressional mandate: bring 14,000 mental health professionals into schools serving low-income and rural communities.

In their first year nationally, the programs served nearly 775,000 students. Sampled projects showed a 50% reduction in suicide risk at high-need schools, along with decreases in absenteeism and behavioral issues, according to the Washington Attorney General's office.

Washington Attorney General Nick Brown has led a coalition of 15 state attorneys general through what is now a year-long court battle over the grants. The coalition has won six favorable rulings.

The department first moved to cut the grants in April 2025, notifying schools their funding would be discontinued. It later acknowledged the grants had been targeted for their perceived support of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Brown's coalition filed suit in July 2025, and a court declared the discontinuations unlawful in December 2025, issuing a permanent injunction.

The department then tried a different route. In June 2026, it filed a motion to terminate the grants outright rather than discontinue them. Brown and 14 other attorneys general filed a second lawsuit on July 10, arguing the termination was an attempt to circumvent the earlier court order.

"We have now beaten back multiple attempts by this administration to illegally gut funding for mental health in our schools," Brown said in a statement announcing the ruling. "This program was a promise to America's youth that their needs would be supported, and we won't let the President break it."

What happens next

The restraining order expires Monday, August 24. A preliminary injunction hearing is expected before that date, though no specific date has been scheduled. If granted, the injunction would extend protections beyond the TRO's expiration.

AG office spokesman Mike Faulk said all nine Washington grant recipients were set to receive notice by Wednesday, July 29, that their funding would not be revoked at the end of the month. The order bars the department from terminating or even re-evaluating the grants in the interim.

The specific dollar amount of UW Tacoma's individual grant share has not been disclosed; the $20 million figure represents the projected total loss across all nine Washington schools over the remaining life of the grants.