Oklahoma’s state superintendent of schools, Ryan Walters, wants every teacher in the state to show a video message from him to their classes which shows him praying for Donald Trump.
Unfortunately for Walters, the state attorney general says that he can’t require students to watch the video, which also announces the creation of a new Department of Religious Freedom and Patriotism, and at least seven of Oklahoma’s school districts say they won’t show it.
“There is no statutory authority for the state schools superintendent to require all students to watch a specific video,” Phil Bacharach, a spokesman for the Oklahoma attorney general’s office, told The Oklahoman. “Not only is this edict unenforceable, it is contrary to parents’ rights, local control and individual free-exercise rights.”
On Thursday night, Walters sent out an email to Oklahoma’s public school superintendents ordering them to show his one-minute-and-24-second video to students. The email contained several grammatical errors, with Walters writing, “We are in a dangerous time for this country. Student’s [sic] rights and freedoms regarding religious liberties are continuously under assault.”
Walters wrote in the email that the new department “will be working to thwart any attempts to disrupt our Oklahoma student’s [sic] fundamental freedoms.” The video closed with a prayer (which he said students did not have to participate in) where Walters asked for blessings on “President Trump and his team as they continue to bring about change to the country.”
But the superintendents of the Edmond, Mustang, Moore, Norman, Owasso, Tulsa, and Midwest City–Del City public school districts said they would not be showing the video, rebuffing Walters.
On the same day, the state superintendent announced that 500 Bibles had been purchased for Oklahoma’s public schools for about $25,000, despite the fact that lawsuits have been filed over Walters’s attempts to integrate Bibles into school curriculum. Walters’s Bible specifications have also been attacked, as only one Bible seemed to fit the specific requirements: Trump’s “God Bless the USA” Bible.
Walters’s video and Bible purchases are only his latest attempts to push Christian nationalism in Oklahoma’s public schools, and like his other efforts, are legally questionable at best. After Trump’s election and the GOP’s takeover of Congress, though, Walters is probably feeling quite emboldened to ramp up his agenda.