from the let’s-make-kids-stupider dept
Like far too many states in the current Trump era, Oklahoma has also decided the Constitution is meaningless and that whatever the government wants, it can have. In this case, it means mandating every school classroom contain a Bible that must be “taught” from, as well as expanding the concept of “social studies” to include election and COVID conspiracy theories espoused by Trump and his supporters.
The Bible thing was already demonstrably unconstitutional and certifiably stupid. But it also appeared to be something more than legislators (and, specifically, state school superintendent Ryan Walters) wishing to shove their preferred religion down students’ mindholes. It appeared to be a legislative concoction crafted specifically to benefit Trump financially, as Tim Geigner noted late last year. If Oklahoma schools were going to abide by this mandate, they’d only have a couple of options.
A salesperson at Mardel Christian & Education searched, and though they carry 2,900 Bibles, none fit the parameters. But one Bible fits perfectly: Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the U.S.A. Bible, endorsed by former President Donald Trump and commonly referred to as the Trump Bible. They cost $60 each online, with Trump receiving fees for his endorsement.
Mardel doesn’t carry the God Bless the U.S.A. Bible or another Bible that could meet the specifications, the We The People Bible, which was also endorsed by Donald Trump Jr. It sells for $90.
When that got exposed, the law was amended to make it less obvious this was being done to redirect state tax dollars into the Trump family’s pockets.
But that wasn’t the only revamp of public education spearheaded by superintendent Ryan Walters. He also pushed another mandate through that forced teachers to fill their students’ heads with conspiracy theories about “stolen” elections and the origins of COIVD-19.
This mandate had its own level of shadiness. Ryan Walters apparently amended it at the last minute before the vote and didn’t inform voting members of the changes, leading them to approve stuff they probably wouldn’t have approved had they been given a heads up.
Three members of the Oklahoma State Board of Education said they weren’t aware of last-minute rewrites before they voted on proposed academic standards for social studies classes in public schools.
Board members Chris Vandenhende, Mike Tinney and Ryan Deatherage said during a meeting Thursday that state Superintendent Ryan Walters, who leads the board, had not informed them of significant changes made to the social studies standards before the board approved them Feb. 27. The approval vote sent the changed draft to the state Legislature for review.
Walters said he is responsible for new language added to the standards, some of which suggest there were “discrepancies” in 2020 presidential election results, but he rejected allegations that the board members weren’t provided the updated version in advance.
You can tell Walters “rejection” of these allegations is, at best, intellectually dishonest. You can tell this because he referred to the accusations as a “fake controversy.” “Fake” is the word any Trump acolyte uses to deny things that are substantially true because that’s what the MAGA Man himself does all the fucking time.
The end result of this deceptiveness in service to deep stupidity has been litigation. The first attempt — led by a former state attorney general — was shut down by an Oklahoma judge because the plaintiffs couldn’t show any law was broken during the passage of this proposal into law.
And while it may be true the state was able to pass an illegal law legally, the process that resulted in the unconstitutional mandates won’t matter nearly as much when the mandate itself is being challenged in court in the latest lawsuit to be brought against the state over this issue.
A second lawsuit, this time appealing directly to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, aims to overturn the state’s new academic standards for social studies on religious freedom and procedural grounds.
A group of 33 parents, teachers and faith leaders on Tuesday asked the state’s highest court to block the controversial new standards, which will dictate what topics public schools must teach in social studies classes starting in the 2025-26 academic year. They requested Oklahoma’s previous social studies standards, enacted in 2019, be reinstated until a new version is validly approved.
The lawsuit [PDF] is being handled by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, so this sort of thing is exactly in its wheelhouse. And, contrary to what some people might be imagining, the plaintiffs are not left-wing activists hoping to attempt to minimally impose some sort of morality. Instead, they’re people who honestly believe their faith is better served by keeping the government out of it.
The lead plaintiff is a Baptist minister, the Rev. Mitch Randall, of Norman.
“To reduce the Bible to a history book – rather than treating it as a theological text – does a disservice to public school students, their families, their teachers and those who consider the Bible to be a book of faith,” Randall said in a statement.
Randall and the plaintiffs also objected to parts of the standards that present disputed claims about the 2020 presidential election and COVID-19.
Superintendent Walters official response is exactly the sort of inanity we’ve come to associate with Donald Trump and the people who willingly decide to be in his orbit.
State Superintendent Ryan Walters, whose administration developed the standards, said the lawsuit is “yet another reminder of the harm that has been done to this country by woke political activists.”
“I am unashamed that Oklahoma students will get an America First education based in facts this fall,” Walters said in a statement. “The Left continues their attempts to destroy Christianity, our history and America herself. Our students will know Americans never have, and never will, bow to their tyrannical hatred of liberty and American values.”
Pure frontier gibberish. The lawsuit is somehow a “reminder” of “harm” caused by the “woke.” “America First education.” “Tyrannical hatred of liberty.” A whole lot of words that have been stripped of all meaning by those who use them the most and almost always in defense of some action of theirs that strips others of their actual liberties while their oppressors performatively fuck the flag like the faux patriots they are. Hopefully, the state’s top court will bring this idiocy to a mercifully swift end. Until then, Oklahoma parents can at least still make things better for their kids by using the superintendent’s own mandates against him.
Filed Under: 1st amendment, election conspiracies, free speech, oklahoma, ryan walters, separation of church and state
