Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters was promptly smacked down with a brutal fact check from a constitutional law professor after he took to X on Tuesday to condemn the state Supreme Court's decision to void a religiously affiliated charter school contract.
St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, had it gone forward, would have been the first-ever religious charter school in the United States. It triggered immediate outcry; even the state's Republican Attorney General, Gentner Drummond, led the charge to sue against it, saying that it would open the door to other kinds of state-funded religious schools like Satanic or "Sharia Law" institutions. The state Supreme Court agreed, striking down the contract as an unlawful establishment of religion in an 8-2 decision.
But Walters, a far-right MAGA figure who has used taxpayer funding to help him score Fox News interviews and has called the separation of church and state a "radical myth," appeared irate over the decision.
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"It’s my firm belief that once again, the Oklahoma Supreme Court got it wrong," wrote Walters. "The words ‘separation of church and state’ do not appear in our Constitution, and it is outrageous that the Oklahoma Supreme Court misunderstood key cases involving the First Amendment and sanctioned discrimination against Christians based solely on their faith. Oklahomans have demanded school choice not religious targeting."
He went on to add that the ruling "cannot stand" and "I will never stop fighting for Oklahomans’ constitutional, God-given right to express their religious belief."
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Pennsylvania-based constitutional law professor Quinn Yeargain, however, quickly pointed out for Walters that while "separation of church and state" may not appear in the Oklahoma Constitution, "these words do" highlighting Article 2, Section 5.
"No public money or property shall ever be appropriated, applied, donated, or used, directly or indirectly, for the use, benefit, or support of any sect, church, denomination, or system of religion, or for the use, benefit, or support of any priest, preacher, minister, or other religious teacher or dignitary, or sectarian institution as such," the section reads.
In addition to his Christian nationalist stances, Walters has previously come under fire for financial ethics disclosure violations, which led to calls by Oklahoma Democrats for his impeachment last year.
