Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s right-wing state faculty superintendent, set off a firestorm when he mentioned he deliberate to spend $6 million to purchase Bibles for each classroom in Oklahoma.
However then the bid specs for that deliberate purchase, which can not even be funded, got here to gentle, and observers seen a peculiarity: The kind of Bible Walters is searching for seems suspiciously just like the “God Bless the USA Bible,” a $59.99 King James Model endorsed by GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and country singer Lee Greenwood.
“It seems to me that this bid is something however aggressive,” former Oklahoma Legal professional Normal Drew Edmondson, a Democrat, told The Oklahoman newspaper.
“It provides to the fundamental specification different necessities that don’t have anything to do with the textual content. The particular binding and inclusion of presidency paperwork will exclude virtually all bidders. If the bid specs exclude most bidders unnecessarily, I might think about {that a} violation.”
The controversy is the newest in an extended sequence for Walters, a former state instructor of the yr who gained election in 2022 to the superintendent’s workplace partly by repeating the lie that college students have been figuring out as cats in colleges and asking to make use of cat litter in loos.
Walters has been seen as a probable GOP candidate for governor in 2026 within the deeply Republican state, and his courting of controversy might plow the way in which by elevating his public profile.
In August, Walters held a news conference outside the state Capitol’s House chamber to defend himself towards an assault by an Oklahoma lawmaker and to disclaim he was angling for larger workplace. However his remarks could have fanned hypothesis.
“It is a clear assault on who he views as his largest political opponent in that governor’s race in 2026,” Walters mentioned of the lawmaker. “My focus is children within the state of Oklahoma. I’m not nervous a couple of future election.”
The classroom Bible brouhaha is bound to get Walters headlines however probably way more.
In March, Trump unveiled the Bible with Greenwood with an enormous publicity splash. Since then, extra variations have been provided, together with a “The Day God Intervened” version with an embossed leather-based cowl noting the date of the assassination try on Trump in Pennsylvania; and a $1,000 “Signature Version” marketed as signed by Trump.
In late June, Walters issued a directive requiring classroom academics in grades 5 by 12 to make use of the Bible as a “foundational” textual content for “tutorial help.”
“This isn’t merely an academic directive however an important step in guaranteeing our college students grasp the core values and historic context of our nation,” he wrote then.
Walters told Fox News in September he had allotted $3 million to purchase classroom Bibles and was asking the state legislature to present the division one other $3 million for that as effectively.
The bidding specs have been issued in late August however gained notice online only in recent days.
The factors for evaluating bids contains lead time for supply, specifying 55,000 Bibles should be delivered inside two weeks of the contract award date. It additionally specifies the Bible model (King James) and that it contains the texts of the Pledge of Allegiance, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Structure and the Invoice of Rights. It additionally needs to be sure in “leather-based or leather-like materials.”
The “God Bless the USA” Bible is the King James model and has all 4 of the additional paperwork. On the website the place it may be bought, each the common version and the “Day God Intervened” version seem like sure in leather-based, with the one distinction being the embossing on the quilt.
Having been in print since March, it will additionally seemingly be out there in amount. Bids are due by Oct. 14.
Dan Isett, a spokesperson for the state Division of Schooling, mentioned Friday that the procurement course of was regular.
“Superintendent Walters has dedicated the company to an open and clear [request for proposal] course of, in step with the norms for state procurement, that might be sufficient to satisfy the wants of Oklahoma lecture rooms,” Isett mentioned in an e-mail to HuffPost.
“There are tons of of Bible publishers and we count on a strong competitors for this proposal. Because the RFP is open and ongoing, it will be inappropriate to remark whereas bids are being positioned.”
Other than the propriety of the bidding course of, Walters’ determination to push the Bible into lecture rooms has drawn criticism from civil liberties teams.
A coalition of them, together with the state and nationwide American Civil Liberties Union teams, Individuals United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom From Faith Basis, filed an Open Records Act request for details about present or deliberate buy of Bibles.
“Oklahoma taxpayers shouldn’t be compelled to bankroll Superintendent Walters’s Christian Nationalist agenda,” mentioned Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Individuals United for Separation of Church and State.
“His newest scheme ― to mandate use of the Bible in Oklahoma public faculty curriculum ― is a clear, illegal effort to indoctrinate and religiously coerce public faculty college students. Not on our watch. Public colleges aren’t Sunday colleges.”
