OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma’s novel public school superintendent announced Wednesday that he is reversing a mandate from his predecessor that forced schools to display Bibles in classrooms and include the book in lesson plans for students.
Superintendent Lindel Fields said in a statement he has “no plans to distribute Bibles or a biblical character education curriculum in classrooms.” Former Superintendent Ryan Walters’ directive last year drew immediate condemnation from civil rights groups and sparked a lawsuit from a group of parents, teachers and religious leaders that is pending before the Oklahoma Supreme Court. It should apply to students in grades 5 to 12.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt appointed Fields superintendent after Walters resigned last month to take a job in the private sector.
Jacki Phelps, an attorney for the Oklahoma State Department of Education, said she plans to inform the court of the agency’s plan to repeal the mandate and file a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
Attorneys representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit said they were encouraged by Fields’ decision and plan to discuss next steps with their clients.
“The attempts to promote religion in the classroom and the abuse of power committed by the Oklahoma State Department of Education under Walters’ tenure should never occur again in Oklahoma or anywhere in the United States,” the attorneys said in a statement.
Many school districts across the state had decided not to follow the biblical mandate.
A state education department spokeswoman, Tara Thompson, said Fields believes the decision about whether to integrate the Bible into the classroom is best left to individual districts and that spending money on Bibles is not the best operate of tax dollars.
Walters had announced plans in March to team up with country singer Lee Greenwood to raise funds to bring Bibles into classrooms after a legislative panel rejected his request for $3 million in funding for the effort.
Walters, a far-right Republican, made fighting “woke ideology,” banning certain books from school libraries and eliminating “radical leftists” who he claims are indoctrinating children in classrooms a focus of his administration. Since his election in 2020, he has imposed a number of mandates on public schools and worked to develop novel social studies standards for K-12 public school students, which included teaching about conspiracy theories related to the 2020 presidential election. Those standards have been put on hold while a lawsuit against them moves forward.
Thompson said the agency plans to review all of Walters’ executive orders, including the requirement that applicants for teaching positions from California and New York take an ideology test, to determine whether those can also be repealed.
“We need to review all of these mandates and provide schools with clarity going forward,” she said.
