Earlier this year, Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters issued a directive to public schools requiring them to incorporate the Bible into their curriculum. He also announced plans to spend $3 million to purchase Bibles for schools.
Filed last week in the Oklahoma Supreme Court, the complaint alleges that Walters’ action “interferes with the parents’ ability to direct the religious and moral upbringing of their children” and “violates the Oklahoma Administrative Procedures Act.”
Groups representing the plaintiffs are as expected: the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Oklahoma chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law & Justice, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Meanwhile, Oklahoma’s Department of Education issued a statement from Walters declaring that “Oklahomans will not be bullied by out-of-state, radical leftists who hate the principles our nation was founded upon.”
Walters added, “The simple fact is that understanding how the Bible has impacted our nation, in its proper historical and literary context, was the norm in America until the 1960s and its removal has coincided with a precipitous decline in American schools.”