Ryan Walters says voters elected him to decide which books should be in school libraries.

State schools Superintendent Ryan Walters says his election in a statewide race is a primary reason why the state Board of Education has the right to decide what books should be on the shelves of libraries in school districts with locally elected school boards.

After Thursday's state board meeting Walters was asked about a lawsuit filed Tuesday by Edmond Public Schools against him, the state board and the Oklahoma State Department of Education. Edmond Superintendent Angela Grunewald said the lawsuit was filed after the OSDE threatened to lower the district’s accreditation over a dispute about books in the libraries of the district’s three high schools. The Edmond school board voted unanimously to approve the lawsuit.

In its lawsuit, the district asked the Oklahoma Supreme Court to decide whether the state board or a local, elected school board has the authority to establish policies concerning books in the district’s libraries. On Wednesday afternoon, the court set a hearing in the case before a court referee on March 5.

The district, and at least one influential state lawmaker, has cast the issue as one of local control. But Walters seemed to reject that idea when meeting with members of the media after Thursday’s meeting.

Why have a state department of education?

“We have the authority to ensure that there’s not pornography or sexually explicit material in the classroom, so we’re going to exercise that authority,” Walters said. If a district is able to do whatever it wants, he asked "why do we have a State Department of Education? Why did voters vote for me to be in this position? To go in and clean schools up."

Walters said, "We’re going to be asking questions." He said "ensuring that districts aren’t abusing students and parents by putting that kind of filth in front of their kids is how we’ve gotten the state back on track. I’m not going to let the state go backwards, because we have a few rogue districts that want to go out there and allow pornography in classrooms across the state.”

Local control, he said, "left us with ‘Gender Queer,’ ‘Flamer’ and all of these books in classrooms across the state. So we came into office and said this isn’t going to be allowed anymore."

Neither of those books were cited by OSDE’s general counsel, Bryan Cleveland, in his letter to the Edmond district. Cleveland’s letter said two other books, the “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls and “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini had been reviewed by the agency’s Library Media Advisory Committee and deemed unfit for a school library.

The only publicly identified member of that committee is Chaya Raichik, a New York woman behind the conservative “Libs of TikTok” social media account. OSDE officials have steadfastly refused to reveal the names of other board members.

Edmond: "We do not have pornography in our libraries"

Grunewald disputed the committee’s finding on Tuesday, emphatically saying, “We do not have pornography in our classrooms and our libraries at Edmond Public Schools.”

The lawsuit also questions the legality of the process used by the state board to pass rules such as the one it adopted in March 2023, when it approved a proposal by Walters to ban “pornographic” materials from school libraries. The district argues the rules didn’t go into effect because they were disapproved by the Legislature. Gov. Kevin Stitt later approved them anyway.

Walters said the Edmond district is “challenging the entire rule and saying the State Department of Education cannot take pornography off the shelves for your kids. The voters were clear in Oklahoma, when they voted me into office, to clean up our schools and get the focus back on academics. We have done that from day one and you now have a district, Edmond Public Schools, that want to be the champion of bringing pornography back to schools, by claiming we don’t have that authority. That’s an outrageous accusation.”

Lawmaker says Edmond district should insist on local control

State Rep. Mark McBride, R-Moore, the chair of the state House of Representatives’ appropriation and budget subcommittee on education, has said the Edmond district is well within its legal right to insist on local control on such an issue.

It was McBride’s letter to Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond that led to an opinion from Drummond last April about whether or not the state Board of Education had the authority to make rules such as the one regarding pornographic material.

The opinion said while the Legislature can authorize the state board to make rules, the section law (Title 70, Section 3-104 of the Oklahoma Statutes) “does not authorize rulemaking on a specific statute or subject.” Drummond's opinion also said “(a)ny rule promulgated relying only on the general ‘powers and duties’ within (that section of law) is invalid and may not be enforced by the State Department of Education or the Board.”

Last March, Drummond also warned that state agencies can't enact administrative rules without first receiving a directive from the Oklahoma Legislature.

“It’s a local-control issue and I think the attorney general has answered that question,” McBride said Wednesday. “As a Republican, I believe in local control and not a nanny state.”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Walters says his election means state board can rule on library books