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CV NEWS FEED // The U.S. Department of Education has cut $1 billion in grants ostensibly for mental health purposes but reportedly used instead to push diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies on young students.
Citing an April 30 article from The Federalist, United States Parents Involved in Education (USPIE) outlined several of the grants in a May 12 emailed news release. One supported the training of counselors “to recognize and challenge systemic injustices, antiracism, and the pervasiveness of white supremacy to ethically support diverse communities.”
Another mental health grant was reportedly used for funding “learning objectives” of racism and white privilege in education, while programs for teachers and staff trained them in DEI values and cautioned against biases, institutionalized racism, and more.
USPIE founder and President Sheri Few celebrated the grant cuts in the release, stating that “It’s about time they pulled the plug.”
“It’s ironic that the federal government thinks it needs to provide a billion dollars for a ‘mental health crisis’ they’ve induced by force-feeding kids woke and Marxist propaganda,” Few stated, adding, “Shaming kids who are white and telling kindergarten through third-grade children they may be a boy or a girl, and other forms of sexualization of young children, are likely at the root of the mental health issues children are facing.”
Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the Department of Education, told The Federalist that the funds are meant to be used for adding extra mental health professionals at schools and campuses across the country.
“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,” Biederman said. “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.”
Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Christopher Rufo also called out the misused grants on X for attempting to ensure that more than 50% of school-based mental health providers are “of a diverse background (race/ethnicity, disability, or LGBTQ+).”
According to the Federalist, the Department of Education says that cutting the grants violates civil rights law. The Department reportedly said in a statement to Congress that it “plans to re-envision and re-compete its mental health program funds to more effectively support students’ behavioral health needs.”
