Oklahoma State politicians from both major political parties are calling for the impeachment of Ryan Walters, the state’s Christian Nationalist head of education, after Walters missed a September 3 meeting of the State Board of Education. Walters’ absence was reportedly the first time in decades that a superintendent has not attended the board meeting, KFOR reported. The meeting was the first convening of the board following accusations that Walters displayed images of nude women in his office during a July executive emeeting with board members.

The September 3 board meeting date was set after Walters abruptly cancelled the board’s regularly scheduled meeting in late August. The board met at 10 a.m. on September 3, conducted business, and concluded nearly 10 minutes later. However, noting Walters’ absence, board member Chris Van Dehende said, “I don’t know if this is just part of his normal shtick to keep things in flux.”

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Politicians have said that Walters’ absence and his other actions have put him at risk for impeachment.

Democratic State Sen. Mark Mann called Waters’ behavior “really just dereliction of duty,” adding, “That agency is barely functioning; it’s in the worst shape it’s ever been in…. I think there are plenty of instances that we could bring up that warrant a discussion of impeachment.” 

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Democratic State Rep. Ellen Pogemiller said, “As a taxpayer, I would have wanted my state superintendent to show up in a meeting like that… There’s plenty of evidence we should have gone through, and we can still go through the impeachment process.”

Former Republican state representative Mark McBride said of Walters, “I’ve given over piles of documents and facts that this individual is basically incompetent to run the office. His incompetence is an impeachable offense, in my opinion.”

However, Republican House Education Chair Dick Lowe said he hasn’t seen evidence of any impeachable offenses from Walters. Lowe did disapprove of Walters’ accusation that the two female board members who reported the nude images in his office had lied about the incident as part of a conspiracy with the state’s Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt to damage Walters’ reputation. Stitt has publicly opposed some of Walters past actions as the state’s education chief.

An investigation into the nude images broadcast in Walters’ office found that they likely came from a 1985 Jackie Chan movie with nude, sexually suggestive scenes, which may have been playing on Walters’ TV during an executive board meeting in his office last July.

Walters, who wants to ban LGBTQ+ books but teach the Bible in public school history classes, has previously pushed the transphobic lie about schools providing litterboxes to students who identify as cats. He also referred to teachers’ unions as “terrorist organizations” and illegally tried to make rules banning LGBTQ+ books and transgender bathroom access in schools.

He has appeared at events hosted by Moms for Liberty, a right-wing anti-LGBTQ+ “parent’s rights” group that has been called an extremist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. He also appointed Chaya Raichik, an anti-LGBTQ+ activist who goes by Libs of Tik Tok online, as a Library Media Advisor for the state (even though she has no educational experience, doesn’t reside in Oklahoma, and has made posts that have led to bomb threats against students).

He also recently demanded that state textbook publishers emphasize Christian Nationalism in history and social studies texts (something the publishers refused to do), and recently unveiled an ideological purity test to weed out “woke” teachers. (The test was criticized as “performative bulls**t” and as an advertisement “masquerading as an assessment.”)

Oklahoma ranks among the worst states for education and is facing a teacher shortage.

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