John Thompson, retired teacher and historian in Oklahoma, sees a ray of hope in the pushback against State Superintendent Ryan Walters’ efforts to impose some version of the Christian religion on the public schools.

Thompson writes:

As Oklahoma State School Superintendent Ryan Walters’s ramps up his attacks on public schools, it must be asked why is he becoming even more extremist when it seems so obvious that he’ll lose these battles? I won’t try to get into his mind, but I believe that four types of responses make it unlikely that Walters can implement his agenda.  He’s losing due to resistance from educators, the courts, legislators, and the press, which is revealing his agenda in a professional manner.  

As the Oklahoma Voice explained, Ryan Walters recently mandated “grade-level specific guidelines” for 5th through 12th grade classes. “They require students to analyze literary elements of biblical stories and to identify how those have impacted Western culture.” Moreover, “Every classroom must also have a physical copy of the Bible, the United States Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Ten Commandments.”

As the Oklahoman reports, eight mostly large suburban school districts say they “would not be altering their curriculum.” One district superintendent, Rick Cobb, said, “The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled this summer that selection of instructional materials is a matter of local control. … I hope that remains the law and continues to be our practice.”

I must add that these school systems’ leaders, like Cobb and Bixby’s Rob Miller, had previously been disproportionately courageous in defending their students from corporate school reform. (Miller is currently protesting the loss of teaching talent due to Walters, and how schools haven’t received their Title I allocations, which were due on July I.) 

In what the Oklahoman characterized as a “veiled threat,” State Superintendent Walters doubled down on his orders, “Some Oklahoma educators have indicated they won’t follow the law and Oklahoma standards, so let me be clear: they will comply, and I will use every means to make sure of it.” And as the Frontier reports, Walters says that “teachers who don’t comply could lose their teaching licenses.” 

But, Walters hasn’t been successful defending his mandates in court. As the Frontier’s Fact-Checkerreported, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s office has said that Walters has no legal authority to require certain content be taught by sending a memo to school districts.  And KFOR reports that Drummond has already informed Walters that he can’t continue to ban legislators serving on Education Committee from his executive committee meetings. 

As the Oklahoma Voice reported, the Education Department ordered the Edmond schools to remove “The Kite Runner” and “The Glass Castle” from its high school library shelves, and “threatened a potential downgrade to Edmond’s accreditation status if it didn’t comply.” However, the “Oklahoma Supreme Court unanimously agreed with Edmond Public Schools that the state Department of Education overstepped its bounds.”

And the Oklahoman reports, the “Walters-led state Board of Education created an administrative rule prohibiting school districts and local schools from ‘altering sex or gender designations in past student records’ without the board’s authorization.” They did so after Walters insisted, “We’re not going to tolerate the woke Olympics in our schools, left-wing ideologues trying to push in this radical gender theory. It is the most radical concept we’ve ever come across in K-12 education, that you can be gender fluid (or) change your gender constantly.”

The Oklahoma Equality Law Center and the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice filed a lawsuit to protect the identity of a student who challenged Walters’ mandate. As Walters was imposing his demands on curriculum, a Cleveland County judge “granted a protective order sought by a Moore Public Schools student against state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters and members of the State Board of Education.”

During the same week the Republican Representative Mark McBride discovered discrepancies between the information he received from the State Department of Education about state funding for Walters’ and his Chief Policy Advisor Matt Langston’s political trips, and the data presented to KFOR news by the Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services (OMES). McBride “says it’s time for Attorney General Drummond’s office to step in and investigate whether OSDE violated the Open Records Act in this case.” The Lost Ogle added that one of the expenses that taxpayers paid for was Walters riding a hot air balloon; and he didn’t tip his Uber driver.

And below is Rep. Mickey Dollens‘ (D) latest critique of Walters and Stitt, listing “recent proposals introduced in the Oklahoma rooted in Christian Nationalism.”

– Bible mandate in public schools.

– Designating the Bible as the Official State Book. 

– Establishing the nation’s first taxpayer-funded religious charter school. 

– Displaying the Ten Commandments at the state capitol. 

– Mandating the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom. 

– Using Bible verses to justify spanking children with disabilities in school. 

– Religious school tax credits. 

– Banning the teaching of evolution in public schools. 

– The governor claiming the state of Oklahoma for Christ in his inaugural speech.

Fourthly, we should take note of the number of excellent articles this piece cites. The Tulsa World’s Ginnie Graham is just one example of reporters presenting the evidence that districts are obeying the law when they reject Walters’ orders. Although the press is seriously underfunded, these local for-profit and nonprofit news organizations have done a fantastic job of documenting how Walters, and other local and national campaigns (like the Project 2025) are threatening both, public education and our other democratic institutions.  

Finally, it was so exciting to be a part of the overflow crowd (not including the thousands who listened on Zoom) in Oklahoma City’s Mayflower Church when Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, spoke on Walters and the Project 2025. So I will end with her concluding words in The Hill about Walters:

The goal of all of these strategies is to assert Christian favor and privilege in America and to fight democracy’s steady march towards equality for all. It’s very much a backlash to all the progress that our society has made in recent times towards LGBTQ equality, towards women’s equality, towards racial equality and Black and brown equality.

Until recently, I doubt many Oklahomans believed that so many people would oppose his agenda.