Civil Rights Organizations Seek Records Related to Oklahoma State Department of Education Spending Millions on Bibles

OKLAHOMA CITY — Today, a coalition of civil rights organizations is making a joint request for additional records related to Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters’s recent mandate to inject the Bible into public school teaching.

In particular, the organizations are seeking records related to Walters’s announced funding for the mandate, made at a September 26 meeting where the Oklahoma State Board of Education approved a $3 million budget request for the 2025-26 fiscal year “to provide Bibles to the Oklahoma classrooms.” Walters said this “$3 million-dollar ask … would be in conjunction with the $3 million dollars that we’re putting forth currently to provide Bibles in the classroom. So this would give us the ability to utilize $6 million dollars in less than two years to ensure that the Bible hasn’t been driven out of Oklahoma classrooms.”

Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Oklahoma Foundation, and Freedom From Religion Foundation are requesting that the Oklahoma State Department of Education provide all records of expenditures during the current fiscal year related to the provision of Bibles for Oklahoma public school classrooms, including communications, contracts, invoices, receipts and payment records. The organizations have asked for a response by October 17, 2024.

The organizations on July 26 also requested records relating to Walters’s June 27 directive that all Oklahoma school districts incorporate the Bible “as an instructional support into the curriculum” for grades five through 12; his July 9 news release about “a complete overhaul” to the state’s social studies standards to “incorporate the introduction of the Bible as an instructional resource”; and the July 24 memorandum disseminated to all school districts providing guidance on the implementation of his Bible-instruction mandate. The State Department of Education has not produced the requested records yet.

The requests are made in the public interest, so that the organizations and their Oklahoma members can determine whether those entrusted with government power are honestly, faithfully, and competently performing their duties as public servants.

“Oklahoma taxpayers should not be forced to bankroll Superintendent Walters’s Christian nationalist agenda,” said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United. “His latest scheme – to mandate use of the Bible in Oklahoma public school curriculum – is a transparent, unlawful effort to indoctrinate and religiously coerce public school students. Not on our watch. Public schools are not Sunday schools.”

“All Oklahoma students deserve to learn in an inclusive environment free from religious proselytization,” said Megan Lambert, legal director of the ACLU of Oklahoma. “Not only should taxpayers be concerned that the state is spending millions of dollars of their money on religious texts, but religious institutions should also be concerned that Oklahoma is attempting to supplant their role as a religious authority.”

“Public schools are a cornerstone of our democracy and must serve all students, regardless of faith,” said Dan Mach, director of the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief. “Diverting millions of taxpayer dollars to purchase Bibles is nothing more than a blatant attempt to divide Oklahomans along religious lines and undermine the public school system.”

“Every Oklahoman, whether Christian, nonreligious, or part of a minority religion, should be outraged at Walters’ attempts to push his personal religious beliefs onto other people's children,” noted FFRF Senior Counsel Sam Grover. "Mandating the use of bibles in public schools is an extreme abuse of government power."