Oklahoma to teach election falsehoods

Kayla Jimenez

USA TODAY

Unless a court steps in, Oklahoma’s public school history teachers will soon be required to teach the disproved conspiracy theory that the Democratic Party stole the 2020 presidential election from President Donald Trump.

The Republican-led state’s new high school history curriculum, set to go into effect this fall, says students must learn how to dissect the results of the 2020 election, including learning about alleged mail-in voter fraud, 'an unforeseen record number of voters' and 'security risks of mail-in balloting.'

Advancing Trump’s debunked claims about his 2020 presidential election loss to young people is one of many changes made by conservative State Superintendent of Education Ryan Walters, including requiring Bibles in every classroom. The new curriculum also removed a prior proposal for lessons about George Floyd’s murder and Black Lives Matter, and teaches as fact the contested theory that COVID-19 emerged from a lab leak.

'These reforms will reset our classrooms back to educating our children without liberal indoctrination,' Walters, a former history teacher, wrote in a post on X on April 29. 'We’re proud to defend these standards, and we will continue to stand up for honest, pro-America education in every classroom.'

The new curriculum was drafted by a review committee that includes conservative talk show host Dennis Prager and Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that created the Project 2025 blueprint for a second Trump term.

Students must be able to 'identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results by looking at graphs and other information, including the sudden halting of ballot-counting in select cities in key swing states, the security risks of mail-in balloting, sudden batch dumps, an unforeseen record number of voters, and the unprecedented contradiction of ‘bellwether county’ trends,' the new standard reads.

Former Democratic President Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election with 306 electoral votes and a 7 million-vote margin in the popular vote. The myth that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump, sometimes called the 'Big Lie,' emerged from Trump’s efforts to overturn his defeat.

The allegations have been disproven through numerous audits and recounts in several states, court dismissals of lawsuits filed by Trump and his supporters, forensic audits of voting machines and partisan reviews. Many Republican legal experts and GOP-appointed judges reject the myth. Even so, it remains widely accepted by Republican voters.

The Oklahoma Department of Education and Walters’ office did not respond to an inquiry from USA TODAY.

Parents, teachers, Democrats and some Republicans in staunchly conservative Oklahoma oppose the new social studies lessons.

Mike Hunter, a former Oklahoma Republican attorney general, filed a lawsuit on behalf of five family members of students and two public school teachers against the Oklahoma State Department of Education and Walters. They argue that Walters’ state Department of Education did not follow proper protocol when passing the new standards and are asking a judge to consider the new social studies curriculum 'invalid, null and void.'

A hearing is set for the week of May 26 where the judge could freeze the implementation of the standards.

The lawsuit addresses public concerns voiced by three new school board members who said they felt Walters deceived them by making last-minute additions to the standards without notifying them or the public, then falsely told them a vote had to be taken that day to meet legislative deadlines when the board actually had two more months.

Hunter’s clients also contend that the new curriculum 'directly harms' students because the new standards 'do not align with best practices and current understandings set by national organizations and experts in the field.'

The revised standards also create 'a significant burden' on teachers because they are not 'aligned with their current understanding of the subject matter' nor with the information in the textbooks they use, the lawsuit argues.

'Many of the late additions include historically inaccurate content and do not align with the inclusive, evidence-based approach that is essential to high-quality social studies instruction,' wrote Heather Goodenough, the president of the Council for Social Studies, in a public statement.

However, Oklahoma’s new social studies standards were welcomed by Sarah Parshall Perry, vice president and legal fellow at the conservative nonprofit Defending Education. She said the move shows 'the power of a state to transform its education through curriculum' and applauded Walters for 'leading the way.'

'I’m very impressed with the fact that this is made specifically to create critical thinkers,' Parshall Perry said in a Fox News interview. 'And don’t we need more of that in American education?'

Republican Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt appointed Walters to the helm of the state’s education department in September 2020. Oklahoma voters then elected him to a second term in November 2022.

Many conservative policies Walters has promoted have ignited local and national controversy.

Contributing: Daniel Funke, USA TODAY; Murray Evans, The Oklahoman