Oklahoma’s anti LGBT+ education chief instructed schools to teach the Bible. They’re refusing.
Oklahoma Educational Superintendent Ryan Walters Photo: BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK via IMAGN
The state’s anti-LGBTQ+ Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters issued the directive in June and has threatened to penalize “rogue” districts that refuse to comply with his demands. Ryan Walters, the state’s anti LGBT+ Superintendent of Public Instruction, issued the directive back in June. He has threatened to punish “rogue districts” that do not comply with his demands. The Oklahoman reported that Walters’ office published a five-page document last week about how to integrate the Bible into lesson plans.
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Walters’ guidance said that school lessons in grades five-through-12 should focus on the Bible’s influence on history, literature, music, and other arts and culture. His guidance also requires every classroom to contain a physical copy of the book and copies of the Ten Commandments, the U.S. Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, The Hill reported.
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The defiant school districts have said they won’t follow his order and will instead follow the current academic standards approved by the Oklahoma Legislature. The current state standards allow schools to include the Bible in their lessons but do not require it. Joseph Price, the parent of a Mayes County student, filed a suit against Walters’ guidance the day after he released it, claiming that the directive violated the separation of state and church. It is possible that the directive violates state laws governing rule-making.
For instance, Walters proposed rules in 2023 requiring schools to inform parents of a student who expressed a desire to change pronouns. Gentner Drummond, the Republican Attorney General of the state, issued a binding ruling that Walters’ rules were unenforceable. This was because the state legislature had not authorized any state agency create new rules regarding the notification of parents about gender identities.
Nevertheless, Walters has threatened to target schools that have refused to comply with his Biblical standards.
“You’ve seen some rogue administrators making comments to the press and so I wanted to address those,” Walters said Wednesday morning. “Some of the worst districts in our
have come out to say that they will not be teaching history. They claimed they would not teach the Bible, because they didn’t want to. They may be offended, but that doesn’t mean that they will not do it. We will enforce the law and they will be held accountable.”
A spokesperson from Walters’ office told The Hill, “Oklahoma school districts are required by state law to teach the historical significance of the Bible. Superintendent Walters is going to hold teachers and administrators responsible. Rogue, left-wing activists who refuse can leave Oklahoma and go to California.”
Rob Miller, superintendent of Bixby Public Schools, told the aforementioned publication, “Walters would probably
our [have] accreditation or something of that nature, and then that would go to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, where I am confident they would again support the rights of local school districts to make that choice.”
Miller suspects Walters would like the issue to advance to the U.S. Supreme Court where the court’s 6-3 conservative majority might rule in his favor. Conservatives admit that Republican efforts to censor LGBTQ+ material and insert Christianity in classrooms are part of a plan to delegitimize the public schools and divert taxpayer funds to Christian and exclusionary schools. This order was also invalidated by the state attorney general. Walters, and conservatives in the United States are keen to ban “pornographic books” from schools. However, they don’t seem to want this standard to be applied to Bible. The Bible, which according to Notre Dame University is not an authoritative history book, contains stories about “incest” (
), “bestiality”, prostitution, genital mutilation and rape. One Utah parent reportedly pointed this out in March. The Bible contains a story of two daughters who make their father drunk so they can have sex to get pregnant. The Bible also mentions a woman who fondly remembers her lover as having “the penis like a donkey and a flood of semen like a horse.”[retaliate by attacking]Walters, who wants to ban LGBTQ+ books but teach the Bible in public school history classes, has previously pushed the transphobic lie about schools providing litterboxes to students who identify as cats. He called teachers’ unions “terrorist groups” and tried to illegally make rules that banned LGBTQ+ books in schools and transgender bathrooms. He has also appeared at events organized by Moms for Liberty – a right-wing, anti-LGBTQ+ group of “parents’ rights” that the Southern Poverty Law Center has called a hate group. He also appointed Chaya Raichik, an anti-LGBTQ+ activist who goes by Libs of Tik Tok online, as a Library Media Advisor for the state (even though she has no educational experience, doesn’t reside in Oklahoma, and has made posts that have led to bomb threats against students).[state academic]Don’t forget to share:
