Case 1: The Bible-Education Mandate

First, in 2024, Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters tried to spend millions of Oklahoma taxpayer dollars to put a Bible in every fifth- through twelfth-grade public-school classroom in the state. And he’s ordered Oklahoma public-school teachers to incorporate the Bible into their everyday lessons. 

In June and July 2024, he laid out this Bible Education Mandate in two official memoranda to all Oklahoma public school districts. In September and October 2024, Superintendent Walters and the Oklahoma State Department of Education took steps toward spending $3 million in state funds to buy 55,000 King James Version Bibles and send them to every school district in the state.

Public schools are not Sunday schools

In October, 2024, Americans United, Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law & Justice, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a lawsuit in the Oklahoma Supreme Court on behalf of 32 Oklahomans — parents, students, teachers, LGBTQ+ people, indigenous people, nonreligious and religious folks, and clergy members.

Our lawsuit asserts Walters’ plans to use state funds to buy Bibles violates the Oklahoma Constitution’s religious freedom protections because public schools would be used to support religion, as well as to favor one religion over others by purchasing a Protestant version of the Bible. The lawsuit also argues that using state funds to buy Bibles or to distribute Bibles oversteps Walters’ and the state department of education’s authority and violates Oklahoma’s legal procedures.

We are asking the court to declare Walters’ Bible Mandate unlawful and unenforceable and to rule that spending state funds on Bibles for public schools is illegal.

In March 2025, the court put on hold Walters’ attempts to buy Bibles, as well as a plan by Walters to buy Bible-based instructional materials.

“God, Christianity and Moral Values”

Walters then announced a new plan to distribute Bibles to Oklahoma public schools: the Bibles Back In School Campaign.

Partnering with entertainer Lee Greenwood, Walters’ campaign asks people to buy, through a special website, Greenwood and Donald Trump’s “God Bless the USA” Bibles. The campaign website tells people to give money for the Bibles because “GOD, CHRISTIANITY AND MORAL VALUES ARE OF THE UTMOST IMPORTANCE.”

We quickly asked the court to stop Walters and other state officials from taking any action to implement the Bibles Back in School Campaign and distribute Bibles to public schools.

In July 2025, Walters ‘demanded’ that the Court allow him to purchase Bibles and Bible-based instructional materials ahead of the new schoolyear. Not on our watch. AU filed another brief opposing Walters’ demand.

Case 2: Bible-infused Social Studies Curriculum

Walters is now trying to force his version of Christianity into public schools through a new set of state-mandated academic standards for social studies. If allowed to take effect, these standards will force public-school teachers to promote and favor particular religious beliefs to their students.

The new curriculum standards are replete with several dozen references to the Bible and Christianity while containing few mentions of other faiths. These references target impressionable elementary-school children as young as first graders; inaccurately present Bible stories as literal, historical facts; inaccurately proclaim the Bible and Christianity’s influence on the founding of America and the country’s laws; and favor Christianity over other faiths and beliefs in other ways. 

The new standards also require other inaccurate teachings, including by presenting disproven contentions about the legitimacy of the 2020 election, and by conveying as unquestioned truth the controversial theory that the COVID-19 pandemic originated in a Chinese laboratory.

So Americans United and Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice are suing Superintendent Walters, the State Department of Education, and the State Board of Education. 

Thirty-three Oklahoma parents, children, teachers and faith leaders are suing

Our lawsuit—on behalf of thirty-three Oklahoma parents, children, teachers, and faith leaders—argues that the standards violate numerous state laws and the Oklahoma Constitution. It explains that the approval of the standards violated the Oklahoma Open Meeting Act and other procedural requirements because Oklahoma officials gave no notice to the public—or even to members of the State Board of Education themselves—that the version of the standards submitted to the Board for a vote was substantially different from the version that had been publicly released. The standards also run afoul of a statutory requirement that Oklahoma’s academic standards be accurate and age appropriate.

And the new standards violate the Oklahoma Constitution’s religious-freedom protections by promoting and favoring one religion over others and over nonreligion in public schools, including to especially impressionable first and second graders.

On September 15, 2025, the Oklahoma Supreme Court issued an order putting the new standards on hold. The court prohibited Walters and the state from implementing the new standards. State officials are also prohibited from spending any state funds on the standards. The court ordered the state to treat the prior version of the standards, which were enacted in 2019, as remaining in effect.