First Amendment the first casualty in Oklahoma school chief’s weird war on ‘woke’ | Opinion
By Dion Lefler – The Wichita Eagle (TNS)
Dec. 26—OPINION AND COMMENTARY — Editorials and other Opinion content offer perspectives on issues important to our community and are independent from the work of our newsroom reporters.
Have you ever noticed how those who proclaim their reverence for the Constitution the loudest are always the first to violate it?
Case in point, Ryan Walters, the Constitution-quoting, Bible-thumping Christian nationalist who runs Oklahoma’s public schools — and is running them into the ground.
This is not the first time I’ve ducked across the state line to comment on the spectacularly miscast superintendent of public instruction in our neighboring state 50 miles south of Wichita. And I’m sure it won’t be the last, because he’s been and continues to be a perfect case study for Kansas of “don’t let this happen here.”
Walters has been in the news in recent weeks for multiple egregious violations of the Constitution. There are five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment, and Walters has managed to violate at least four of them:
— Freedom of the press — Walters got spanked in court after he banned an Oklahoma City television station from covering public meetings in person because he didn’t like their reporting — he and his chief propagandist, Dan Isett, who body-blocked a reporter trying to question Walters in a hallway.
— Freedom of religion — Walters used state funds to buy 532 copies of the “God Bless the USA Bible” — as advertised by one Donald Trump — for Advanced Placement Government classes, the first of 55,000 Bibles that Walters wants to buy and has mandated be taught in every classroom in the state.
— Freedom of religion (part two) — Walters tried to force every school district in the state to force their students to watch a cringey YouTube video including himself praying for “President Donald Trump and his team as they continue to bring about change to the country.”
— Freedom of speech — Walters has issued a new set of social studies curricula that require teachers to laud the accomplishments of (you guessed it) Donald Trump. “You’re not going to come in and teach President Trump wanted an insurrection on Jan. 6 — we’re not going to allow it,” Walters blustered to Fox News (where else). “We will be crystal clear on what President Trump’s victories were in the White House.”
— Freedom to petition government — An Oklahoma judge last month green-lighted a lawsuit against Walters alleging he violated the First Amendment rights of a department employee — and mother— who was fired her after she spoke to her local school board about mental health needs in schools in the wake of a student suicide.
You may remember from one of my earlier columns how Walters and one of his henchmen used KGB-style tactics in an ongoing effort to purge the state’s Education Department of “anyone that has a disagreement on Superintendent Walters’ beliefs to fight the liberal woke culture seeping into our schools.”
But there is pushback, starting with the TV station Walter excluded from live coverage of meetings of the state Board of Education.
KFOR-TV sued to protect news media access to the news and won.
On the day of a scheduled trial, the state settled out of court, acting on the time-honored legal principle of crus stare non habemus, (Latin for “We don’t have a leg to stand on”).
The settlement granted the station’s journalists access to all board meetings and Walters’ press conferences, departmental statements and news releases.
The TV station got everything it sued for, including attorney fees and $17.91 in damages, a deliciously symbolic amount based on 1791, the year the First Amendment was ratified.
And Walters’ 532 Trump Bibles may be all he’s going to get. State records show the purchase came to just under $25,000, the state’s threshold for requiring competitive bidding.
The request for bids for 55,000 more Bibles (estimated cost, $3 million) has been withdrawn for now, after it was pointed out that the absurd bid specifications — King James translation, leather- or leather-like cover, with an appendix of founding documents of the government — were obviously tailored to the specifications of the Trump Bible.
Meanwhile, a group of parents, teachers, ministers and other faith leaders have sued to have the Bible mandate overturned as a violation of the separation of church and state (which Walters doesn’t believe in). The case is before the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which in June foiled another of Walter’s pet projects, to establish a publicly funded religious charter school.
As for his must-see prayer video, Walters rescinded his edict that it has to be shown to students and distributed to parents.
It’s still too early to tell how his whitewashed social studies standards are going to fare. Those are currently in a public comment period and will have to go before the Oklahoma Legislature for final approval.
In the proposed standards, there are 118 references to the Constitution. It’s a shame that Ryan Walters has no idea what the document exists to protect.
Thus ends today’s lesson in how not to run a school system. Kansas, are you paying attention?
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