Oklahoma's Ryan Walters sued over plan to spend $3 million on Trump bibles

A coalition of church/state separation groups filed a lawsuit today

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Several church/state separation groups are suing Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, to prevent him from wasting $3 million in taxpayer dollars on KJV bibles for teachers across the state.

Ryan Walters, about to say something thoughtless (screenshot via Facebook)

As I’ve reported earlier, all indications were that Walters wanted to buy the specific brand of bibles endorsed by Donald Trump (and for which he gets a cut of every purchase).

Ryan Walters wants a KJV Bible in every classroom

Walters indicated he would be doing this back in June when he issued a memo demanding that every public school teacher incorporate the Bible into their curriculum in order to “teach our kids about the history of this country.” He said “Adherence to this mandate is compulsory” and that “Immediate and strict compliance is expected.”

Weeks later, he got more specific. He said districts had to provide physical copies of the Bible and the Ten Commandments to every teacher. He also explained how certain teachers would be required to use those books. For example, history teachers had to “highlight key historical moments where the Bible played a role” and music teachers could “explore how composers and musicians have interpreted and expressed biblical themes.”

Walters said in interviews that teachers who failed to comply could be fired. (“If teachers don't want to teach it, they are compelled to teach it, or they can find another job.”)

Last month, to facilitate his absurd demand, Walters announced that he would set aside $3 million from his office’s budget to purchase bibles for use in classrooms. (He later asked the state legislature to double that but they have yet to approve it.) That amount, his office explained, would come from a pool of money reserved for Department of Education staff salaries.

Besides the fact that teachers were not asking for bibles—or, for that matter, asking someone like Walters to micromanage what they do in the classroom—Oklahoma only has about 43,000 public school teachers, most of whom don’t teach classes that would need a Bible under Walters’ own plans. If you bought a copy of the book for every single one of them, it would come out to $139.53 per Bible. A complete waste of money. Even if you used the $3 million number instead, it was still $69.77 per Bible.

Things got even weirder a few weeks ago when Walters released his “Request for Proposal” for all those books—basically asking publishers to bid on supplying them to Oklahoma schools, presumably giving a contract to the company that met all the requirements and came in with the lowest bid.

And wouldn’t you know it: All the requirements described the Trump Bible just perfectly.

Walters said he needed 55,000 bibles that contained the copyright-free KJV translation (for “historical accuracy,” whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean). As I mentioned, there aren’t even that many teachers in the state, much less teachers who Walters said would need a classroom Bible.

Additionally, Walters said the books “must include” the Pledge of Allegiance, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the U.S. Bill of Rights. All of which just happen to be included in the Trump bibles.

The books also needed to be leather-bound (or bound in “leather-like material”) for some reason. And they needed to be shipped to schools within two weeks of the contract being signed. Which, in practice, meant the bibles had to already be printed and ready to go.

It wasn’t hard to read between the lines: Ryan Walters thought he found a “neutral” way to send Trump his share of over $3 million in taxpayer dollars. We knew that because the requirements for these bibles made no sense, financially or academically.

When reporters at Oklahoma Watch asked one of the largest Christian booksellers in the country if they carried anything matching what Walters wanted, the response was an unequivocal no.

A salesperson at Mardel Christian & Education searched, and though they carry 2,900 Bibles, none fit the parameters. 

2,900 versions of the same book… and none of them would be good enough for Walters. The only other version of the Bible that appeared to fit the requirements was a different Trump-endorsed Bible that costs $89.99 (plus shipping).

Even beyond that, the window for bids was only open for two weeks instead of the standard four… which only made sense if you were simply waiting for one company to send in a bid proposal.

The RFP was so egregiously tailored to Trump that legal experts and a former Oklahoma attorney general said it appeared to violate state law because the RFP wasn’t truly competitive. There was no good reason the books had to include specific documents from U.S. history or have leather binding. If the goal of the RFP was to get the best price for a project funded by taxpayers, those unnecessary restrictions did nothing but drive up the costs and limit the options.

It was all especially idiotic since the KJV translation is already freely available online. Even a basic run-of-the-mill KJV bible runs a few bucks, tops.

There was no excuse for spending upwards of $60 per book unless the real goal was to help Trump line his pockets and improve Walters’ standing in the GOP so he could eventually be appointed as Secretary of Education under a future Trump Administration.

Remember that no one was asking for this. Superintendents of large public school districts have already told Walters they have no intention of playing along with his Bible-in-the-classroom plan.

Walters amended his request… but still catered to Trump

There was predictable backlash to all of this. So earlier this month, Walters revised the RFP to make the requirements a little less stringent. The new deadline for applications was extended by one week, to October 21, giving publishers a total of three weeks to apply… but still not the standard four.

Also, the additional documents—like the U.S. Constitution—were no longer mandatory inside the books. But that, too, wasn’t really a change because of how it was worded in the amended RFP.

The new application said those documents could be “bound together or separately,” but added that they “must also be bound in durable material.” In other words, publishers would have to create a brand new book—with a sturdy cover—that was only a few pages long.

Why make that change? In my view, because it would look like you’re opening the door to non-Trump bibles… while immediately shutting the door on that possibility by adding a different meaningless requirement. The end result was that the Trump bibles were still the only viable options for the schools, and Walters had every intention of spending over $3 million in taxpayer money on them.

Christa Helfrey, a spokesperson for the Office of Management and Enterprise Services, told reporters the changes were made to provide “much better value to Oklahomans.” But that was always bullshit. The amended RFP, just like the original, was designed to accommodate the Trump bibles. And if Walters’ office wanted to save everyone money, all they had to do was nothing because the KJV Bible is already free to access online, just like all those additional documents.

The new lawsuit aims to put a stop to all this

This morning, a coalition of groups filed a lawsuit to stop this plan from going into effect.

The ACLU, the ACLU of Oklahoma, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law & Justice are representing more than 30 Oklahomans who have a variety of reasons for not wanting the Bible Mandate to go into effect.

The 32 plaintiffs include 14 public school parents, four public school teachers and three faith leaders who object to Walters’ extremist agenda that imposes his personal religious beliefs on other people’s children – in violation of Oklahomans’ religious freedom and the separation of church and state. The plaintiffs come from a variety of faith traditions, including Baptist, Catholic, Presbyterian (U.S.A.) and United Church of Christ, and some identify as atheist, agnostic or nonreligious. Some are of Indigenous heritage, and some have family situations – such as LGBTQ+ members or children with special educational needs – that cause particular concerns around teaching the Bible in public schools, especially around bullying.

Specifically, the lawsuit says that Walters’ Bible Mandate “interferes with the parents’ ability to direct the religious and moral upbringing of their children.” Their kids “face coercive instruction on religion in their public schools that is contrary to their own beliefs.” And it uses tax dollars to support “a single religious tradition.”

The lawsuit gets more granular, too. It says Walters violated the Oklahoma Administrative Procedures Act, which has certain procedures when it comes to issuing new rules—including a “provision of notice and a comment period”—and Walters didn’t adhere to any of that. Furthermore, public school superintendents have the authority, under state law, to select their own instructional materials, and Walters can’t force them to use something they reject.

Finally, they say. Oklahoma’s Constitution (“specifically Section 5 of Article II and Section 2 of Article I”) prohibits state funding for the promotion of religion.

(Amusing side note: The lawsuit never directly mentions Trump. It only refers to bibles that are “officially endorsed by a prominent candidate for public office.”)

The lawyers are asking the courts to step in as soon as possible because the deadline for the RFP is next week and the bibles are expected to be shipped to schools shortly after that. They want this stopped before any money goes out the door. Then they want the Bible Education Mandate rescinded, the RFP withdrawn, and any potential contracts with publishers canceled.

Walters has been under fire for a while now

It’s worth mentioning that Oklahoma is among the worst states in the country when it comes to education and Ryan Walters has every intention on dragging the state to the very bottom of the list.

Walters is the same guy who approved the use of PragerU materials in public school classrooms. He claimed the Tulsa Race Massacre had nothing to do with race. He’s falsely insisted that President Joe Biden “wants to destroy our Christian faith.” He formed a faith committee to examine prayer in public schools; the committee, full of conservative Christian pastors, then recommended putting the Ten Commandments in every classroom. He also tried to put Christian chaplains in public schools. He appointed the troll who runs Libs of TikTok to a statewide library advisory board. He sent out a “sample prayer” for teachers to use for the people of Israel (and definitely not the innocent people living in Gaza). He’s a YouTube comment thread come to life.

He also backed a taxpayer-funded Catholic charter school (which the Oklahoma Supreme Court later declared illegal).

But these aren’t the only reasons people dislike him. Just ask his GOP colleagues. They hate the guy!

Back in August, more than two dozen Republican state legislators sent a letter to House Speaker Charles McCall urging him to investigate Walters, a step which could potentially result in Walters’ impeachment. They cited the fact that he wouldn’t allow members of his committee, or its Senate equivalent, to witness Executive Sessions of the Board of Education. And that he refused to respond to the education committees’ inquiries. And that he didn’t properly spend money on school security that had already been allocated for that purpose. And that he was being shady about how he was spending money for his office’s travel budget. And that he wasn’t fulfilling open records requests in a timely manner. And—get this—that he refused to spend money that he was legally obligated to spend on asthma inhalers, putting students’ lives at risk.

But none of that has changed Walters’ dictatorial approach. He’s been pushing Christian Nationalism for years now, under the belief that no one’s going to stop him—and so far, no one has. At least not permanently. That means the state remains stuck with an education leader who doesn’t give a damn about education and is only interested in promoting himself. That means students across the state are worse off due to his selfishness and faith-based ignorance.

This lawsuit could finally put a stop to his most brazen attempt yet to shove religion— his religion, naturally—into schools across the state.

(Portions of this article were published earlier)

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