Oklahoma’s Trump-loving top school official, known for mandating Bibles in every classroom, is now facing an investigation after naked women were seen on TVs in his office, according to reports.
What should have been a mundane Oklahoma State Board of Education executive session Thursday turned shocking after board members saw naked women appear on a TV screen behind Ryan Walters, the Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction and board chair, in his office, according to The Oklahoman.
The Independent has reached out to Walters for comment. A spokesperson for Walters branded the incident as a “junk tabloid lie” to the outlet.
Now, the state’s Senate has launched a porn probe.
Senate President Pro Tempore Lonnie Paxton told the Oklahoma Voice that “leadership at the agency is working through proper channels to initiate the investigation.”
“This is a bizarre and troubling situation that raises serious questions about the events and what took place during yesterday’s executive session at the Oklahoma State Board of Education meeting,” Paxton told the outlet in a statement. “The accounts made public by board members paint a strange, unsettling scene that demands clarity and transparency.”
It’s not immediately clear who was responsible for showing the women. Some board members said Walters was facing away from the TV during the meeting.
His spokesperson told The Oklahoman: “Any number of people have access to these offices. You have a hostile board who will say and do anything except tell the truth, and now, the Wokelahoman is reporting on an alleged random TV cable image.”
Becky Carson, a board member who attended the meeting, said she was “disturbed” by what she saw on TV.
“I saw them just walking across the screen, and I’m like, ‘no.’ I’m sorry I even have to use this language, but I’m like, ‘Those are her nipples.’ And then I’m like, ‘That’s pubic hair.’…I was so disturbed by it…I was very stern, like I’d been a mother or a classroom teacher. And I said, ‘What am I watching? Turn it off now!’” she told The Oklahoman.
Walters then promptly shut it off, Carson told the outlet.
She added: “It looked like it was made in the ‘60s, maybe.”
Fellow board member Ryan Deatherage, who also attended the meeting, said the TV was on throughout the session but the volume was turned down.
“Quite frankly, I didn’t know how to handle it. I was just in shock. I was being human and I didn’t know what to think. … I kept thinking that it was just going to go away and so I quit watching it,” he told the outlet.
He told The Oklahoma Voice that Walters should be held to account.
“We hold educators to the strictest of standards when it comes to explicit material,” Deatherage told the outlet. “The standard for the superintendent should be no different.”
Walters has argued strictly against showing what he deemed “pornography” in schools.
Last year, Walters advocated for banning books that he claims contain “pornography,” such as the novel The Kite Runner, which contains sexual content. He threatened to lower the accreditation of a school district if it didn’t remove such books from libraries’ shelves. Edmond Public Schools then filed a lawsuit against Walters.
“Edmond Public Schools not only allows kids to access porn in schools, they are doubling down to keep pornography on the bookshelves,” Walters said in a statement.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled in favor of the school district last June, determining Walters and the state’s department of education overstepped.
Walters has also touted the teachings of the Bible. Last June, he issued a mandate requiring the historic text be a fixture in classrooms and curriculum— for grades 5 through 12 — across the state.
“The left is upset, but one cannot rewrite history,” he said last June.
Faith leaders and parents then sued Walters last October. “The Mandate interferes with the parents’ ability to direct the religious and moral upbringing of their children. The children themselves face coercive instruction on religion in their public schools that is contrary to their own beliefs,” the plaintiffs argued.
The state supreme court temporarily blocked the mandate in March.
Last week, however, he filed a motion with the state’s highest court, demanding it lift the stay.
“The Left has launched an all-out assault on Christianity in this country and will stop at nothing to destroy the Bible’s significance in our country and the principles that shaped this country,” Walters said in a statement Tuesday. “Students cannot fully understand American History without understanding the Bible’s role in it, despite the liberal hysteria we continue to see.”
