Maine has joined a coalition of 16 states in a lawsuit against the federal Department of Education challenging its decision to cancel millions of dollars in funding for school-based mental health services.

The state receives more than $3 million in grants through that program, and Attorney General Aaron Frey said cutting the congressionally designated funding is illegal and cruel to the students who rely on school-based mental health services.

The fund was created after the 2022 mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, part of a massive bipartisan appropriation that included $1 billion for school mental health services, with an ultimate goal of bringing 14,000 mental health professionals to schools. In late April, the Department of Education sent a letter to states informing them that the program conflicted with the Trump administration’s priorities and grants would be canceled.

Maine would lose more than $3 million in grants that support 14 school-based mental health professionals because of that decision, according to the attorney general’s office. It said last year that nearly 5,000 students in Maine received mental health support at school through that grant.

“I cannot think of a more worthy priority than ensuring children receive mental health services they need,” Frey said. “These funds were congressionally designated, with bipartisan support, for this critical service in the wake of the Uvalde tragedy. Withholding these funds is not only cruel, it is illegal.”

The funding also supports graduate students studying to be school-based mental health professionals.

The case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, asks a federal judge to rule that the cuts are illegal and seek an injunction rescinding the notice of grant cancellation.

In the lawsuit, Frey and the attorneys general of other states including Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, argue that the boilerplate notices of discontinuation sent to each state were unlawful because they were arbitrary and non-specific, and because a new administration cannot discontinue a multi-year grant just because it has different priorities.

“Starting this fall, many schools in plaintiff states will no longer be able to reliably provide mental health services to the kids that need them most. These discontinuances threaten the very purpose of these programs — to protect the safety of our children by permanently increasing the number of mental health professionals providing mental health services to students in low-income and rural schools.”

The complainants write that the programs have been a massive success so far: They have supplied mental health services to about 775,000 students nationwide, and data from sampled projects shows a 50% decrease in suicide risk at high-needs schools.