FILE — Ryan Walters, Republican candidate for Oklahoma State Superintendent, speaks at a rally on Nov. 1, 2022, in Oklahoma City. Republican State Superintendent Walters ordered public schools Thursday, June 27, 2024, to incorporate the Bible into lessons for grades 5 through 12, the latest effort by conservatives to incorporate religion into classrooms. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)
A coalition of faith leaders, parents, students, and teachers in Oklahoma are suing over a far-right official’s plans to incorporate the Bible into the teaching plans of every public school in the state.
In June, Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters (R) issued an edict mandating Sooner State schools “to incorporate the Bible” across all fifth through 12th grade curricula.
The directive was “effective immediately,” according to the memorandum instituting the change. It was also immediately controversial, resulting in pushback from educators across the state.
Now, several faith traditions have joined together in something not entirely unlike ecumenical opposition to Walters’ plan to use the Bible “as an instructional support” in courses on “history, civilization, ethics, comparative religion, or the like.”
The lead plaintiff in the 51-page lawsuit is Rev. Lori Walke, the senior minister at the Mayflower Congregational United Church of Christ in Oklahoma City. Other sects of Christianity are represented in the lawsuit by Baptist, Catholic, and Presbyterian clergy and laypeople.
“I am a faith leader who cares deeply about our country’s promise of religious freedom and ensuring that everyone is able to choose their own spiritual path,” Walke said in a press release announcing the lawsuit. “The state mandating that one particular religious text be taught in our schools violates the religious freedom of parents and children, teachers, and taxpayers. The government has no business weighing in on such theological decisions. I’m proud to join this lawsuit because I believe Superintendent Walters’ plan to use taxpayer money to buy Bibles and force public schools to teach from them is illegal and unconstitutional.”
The iteration of the Christian text the state intends to use for instruction is the King James Version, a translation and collection of books favored by Protestants and Evangelicals. Walters intends to spend up to $3 million in public funds securing some 55,000 leather-bound copies for Oklahoma’s schoolchildren, according to late September updates by the State Department of Education.
The heart of the lawsuit is that the state issued the so-called “Bible Education Mandate” in violation of the homegrown version of the Administrative Procedures Act (OAPA). This procedural argument says the mandate would legally be considered a “rule” under the act. And, when a rule is issued, strict guidelines must be followed.
Here, the plaintiffs claim Walters and his agency failed to follow the notice-and-comment guidelines when issuing the rule. These guidelines more or less track with the guidelines of the same name mandated by the federal Administrative Procedure Act.
The lawsuit says the agency was required to: (1) publish a notice of the proposed change on the Oklahoma Register; (2) “forward copies of the rule to the governor” and the leader of the state legislature; (3) “file the newly adopted or amended rule” with the Oklahoma Secretary of State; and (4) prepare a summary of the rule.
“The Department of Education Respondents did not even attempt to do any of these things,” the lawsuit reads.
That basic procedural qualm is not the only issue with the mandate, according to the lawsuit. The plaintiffs say the procedural rules required by the educational agency itself were ignored.
The filing goes on here, at length:
Nor did the Department of Education Respondents follow the procedure for modifying the Oklahoma Academic Standards in promulgating the Bible Education Mandate. These subject-matter standards are a set of educational benchmarks for each grade in each subject-matter area. The subject-matter standards must be adopted by the State Board of Education every six years and must be approved by the legislature. The subject-matter standards have not been modified through this procedure to incorporate the Bible Education Mandate.
The lawsuit also says the mandate violates the OAPA because it violates a section of Oklahoma state law that provides: “School districts shall exclusively determine the instruction, curriculum, reading lists and instructional materials and textbooks, subject to any applicable provisions or requirements as set forth in law, to be used in meeting the subject matter standards.”
“Contrary to this statute, the Bible Education Mandate requires school districts to provide particular instruction and use a particular instructional item — the Bible,” the lawsuit reads.
Under the state’s administrative rubric, rules may not be “violative of any other applicable statute,” the lawsuit notes.
The plaintiffs also say the plan to spend taxpayer dollars on securing the Bibles in question would violate valid procurement rules as well as the Oklahoma Constitution.
“The Request for Proposal to supply Bibles violates state procurement requirements because it is gerrymandered to favor two particular providers,” the lawsuit summarizes. “And religious freedom provisions of Oklahoma’s Constitution — specifically Section 5 of Article II and Section 2 of Article I — prohibit spending state funds on the Bibles, because they are religious items and the spending would support one particular religious tradition.”
In the earlier face of widespread opposition to the Biblical education mandate, Walker dug in during a press conference.
“Rogue administrators will not reject the Bible from the classrooms,” the official said in an X post. “History will be taught and administrators will follow the law. The Bible, the constitution, and many other documents are essential to education and we will teach Oklahoma kids about the impact it has on history.”
The plaintiffs, represented by attorneys with the Oklahoma ACLU and Freedom From Religion Foundation, are seeking “an injunction, and/or a writ of mandamus and/or prohibition” that would declare the mandate “unlawful and invalid,” stop the state from enforcing the mandate and bar the purchase of Bibles using state funds.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
