New Oklahoma schools superintendent rescinds mandate for Bible instruction in schools

oklahoma city– Oklahoma’s new superintendent of public schools announced Wednesday that he will rescind a mandate imposed by his predecessor that forced schools to place Bibles in classrooms and incorporate the book into students’ lesson plans.

Note: Video from a previous report.

Superintendent Lyndell Fields said in a statement that he has “no plans to distribute Bibles or biblical character education curricula in classrooms.” The directive issued by former Superintendent Ryan Walters last year drew immediate condemnation from civil rights groups and led to a lawsuit from a group of parents, teachers and religious leaders being heard before the Oklahoma Supreme Court. It was intended to be applied to students in grades 5 to 12.

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt appointed Fields to the superintendent position after Walters resigned last month to take a job in the private sector.

Jackie Phelps, an attorney for the Oklahoma State Department of Education, said she intends to notify the court of the agency’s plan to revoke the mandate and seek to dismiss the lawsuit.

Lawyers 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 abuse of power that the Oklahoma State Department of Education engaged in under Walters should never happen in Oklahoma or anywhere in the United States again,” the attorneys said in a statement.

Many school districts across the state have decided not to comply with the biblical mandate.

Tara Thompson, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Education, said Fields believes the decision on whether to incorporate the Bible into classroom instruction is best left to individual districts and that spending money on Bibles is not the best use of taxpayer resources.

In March, Walters announced plans to team up with country music singer Lee Greenwood to solicit donations to introduce Bibles into classrooms after a legislative committee rejected his request for $3 million to fund the effort.

Walters, a far-right Republican, made combating “woke ideology,” banning some books from school libraries and getting rid of “far-leftists” who he claimed were indoctrinating children in classrooms a focal point of his administration. Since his election in 2020, he has imposed a number of mandates on public schools and has worked to develop new social studies standards for K-12 public school students, which included teaching conspiracy theories related to the 2020 presidential election. Those standards have been put on hold while the lawsuit challenging them progresses.

Thompson said the agency plans to review all of Walters’ decrees, including the requirement that teacher job applicants from California and New York take an ideological test, to determine whether they can be repealed as well.

“We need to review all of these mandates and provide clarity for schools moving forward,” she said.