Murray Evans,
The Oklahoman
Fri, August 15, 2025
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters against the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a group with which he’s had multiple public disagreements.
U.S. District Judge John F. Heil III in Muskogee issued his ruling on Wednesday, Aug. 13, saying Walters and the taxpayer-funded agency he leads, the Oklahoma State Department of Education, had failed to demonstrate standing to file the lawsuit. Heil also found the court lacked jurisdiction. The case was dismissed without prejudice, meaning it could be refiled.
In the lawsuit, filed March 31, Walters complained about the foundation sending letters to two Oklahoma school districts concerning public prayer being held in one, Achille Public Schools, and the hiring of an athletic team chaplain in another, Putnam City Schools. The foundation believed those situations to be unconstitutional. Walters, who has pushed to include the teaching of the Bible in Oklahoma classrooms, disagreed.
Fri, August 15, 2025
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters against the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a group with which he’s had multiple public disagreements.
U.S. District Judge John F. Heil III in Muskogee issued his ruling on Wednesday, Aug. 13, saying Walters and the taxpayer-funded agency he leads, the Oklahoma State Department of Education, had failed to demonstrate standing to file the lawsuit. Heil also found the court lacked jurisdiction. The case was dismissed without prejudice, meaning it could be refiled.
In the lawsuit, filed March 31, Walters complained about the foundation sending letters to two Oklahoma school districts concerning public prayer being held in one, Achille Public Schools, and the hiring of an athletic team chaplain in another, Putnam City Schools. The foundation believed those situations to be unconstitutional. Walters, who has pushed to include the teaching of the Bible in Oklahoma classrooms, disagreed.
Heil said the lawsuit “does not allege that (the agency) has stopped executing its duties or ceased administration of Oklahoma’s public schools because of defendant’s letters. Nor does the complaint allege that the schools have ceased any policies or practices because of defendant’s letters. For these reasons, the court finds that plaintiffs have failed to show an injury in fact,” Heil wrote.
He added: “Plaintiffs’ generalized statement of injury is nothing more than conjecture.”
The Madison, Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation called Heil’s ruling “a win for freedom of speech.” Annie Laurie Gaylor, the co-president of the foundation, said it would “continue to work to protect the constitutional rights of students and families in Oklahoma.”
Megan Lambert, the legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma, which helped represent the foundation in the lawsuit, said the decision underscores the right to speak out for change.
“The right to dissent is now more important than ever, and we remain committed to ensuring that people can continue to advocate for better governance and equity in Oklahoma public schools," Lambert said. "The Oklahoma State Department of Education is without the power to silence dissent.”
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters and his agency against the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Walters responded to a request to comment on Heil's ruling Thursday, Aug. 14, by issuing a statement reiterating his support for Christian values.
“For years and, at the behest of Democrats, Christianity is under attack in America,” Walters said. “And during this all out assault on Christian values, all we hear from the Left is applause. There will NEVER be a day where I allow these values to be trampled on in Oklahoma.”
In a letter to Achille Superintendent Rick Beene dated Dec. 17, the foundation said it had learned from a complainant that their child’s history teacher “now begins class by picking a Bible verse for the day and asking a student to read the verse to the class” and that the district “has a custom and practice of beginning each school day with ‘mandatory student-led prayer’ over the schools’ intercom system.”
Achille, located in Bryan County in southeastern Oklahoma, has about 300 students in its district.
An attachment to the lawsuit included a February 2018 letter sent from the foundation to the Putnam City district concerning the football team chaplain, but the lawsuit did not ask for any relief regarding that letter.
Walters' suit claimed the foundation's letters had interfered with “Superintendent Walters’s and OSDE’s statutory duty to oversee Oklahoma’s public schools and their duty to implement curricular standards, investigate any complaints levied against an Oklahoma school and advocate for its students and parents.”
Walters and the Freedom from Religion Foundation have clashed before, over issues including prayer over the school intercom at a Prague school and a Bible-verse-themed poster inside a Putnam City middle school. The foundation has cited the long-standing court precedent establishing a separation between church and state.
This article has been updated because a previous version had an inaccuracy.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Judge tosses suit filed by Ryan Walters over letters sent to schools
Judge dismisses lawsuit brought by Oklahoma school chief
Barbara Hoberock
Thu, August 14, 2025
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State Superintendent Ryan Walters peaks at a news conference at the state Capitol in Oklahoma City on May 16, 2025. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice)
OKLAHOMA CITY – A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by State Superintendent Ryan Walters against a group that works to enforce the separation of church and state.
Walters and the State Department of Education filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District in March against the Freedom from Religion Foundation.
The nonprofit organization sent a letter to southeast Oklahoma’s Achille Public Schools in 2024 concerning school-sponsored prayers and Bible readings, asking that the practice be stopped.
It also sent a letter in 2018 to Putnam City Public Schools concerning a football team chaplain’s actions.
The Education Department’s suit alleged the actions interfered with its ability to govern public schools.
In a ruling filed Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge John F. Heil III said the lawsuit does not explain how the letters interfered with day-to-day operations in any real way.
Walters and the agency have failed to show any real injury, the order said.
“We are so pleased that Walters’ frivolous lawsuit seeking to muzzle FFRF and our free speech rights was promptly dismissed,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, the group’s co-president. “It was an outrageous attempt by a Christian nationalist public official to attack FFRF’s work to uphold the First Amendment.”
Walters said Christianity, at the behest of Democrats, is under attack.
“And during this all out assault on Christian values, all we hear from the left is applause,” Walters said. “There will never be a day where I allow these values to be trampled on in Oklahoma.”
Trump-appointed judge rebukes Oklahoma’s Ryan Walters
Ja'han Jones
Fri, August 15, 2025
MSNBC
Oklahoma’s right-wing schools chief, Ryan Walters, received a stern rebuke this week as a Trump-appointed federal judge tossed out a baseless lawsuit filed by Walters to try to silence a religious freedom organization.
Between a brewing pornography scandal and this court loss, Walters’ past few weeks have been rather eventful.
Walters has pushed to convert Oklahoma’s public schools into hubs of right-wing religious indoctrination, through controversies such as his promotion of Bible-infused lesson plans and his attempt to require that schools show students a propaganda video of him praying for Donald Trump and attacking liberals. The court case that was just tossed involved a lawsuit Walters filed in an attempt to stop the Freedom From Religion Foundation — an organization focused on preventing theocratic rule in the U.S. — from sending letters to Oklahoma school districts raising legal concerns about accounts of school officials proselytizing to students, such as with school-sponsored prayer and Bible readings.
The lawsuit baselessly claimed that the group’s advocacy “has interfered with and will continue to interfere with” Oklahoma education officials’ ability to do their work. And U.S. District Court Judge John Heil — a Trump appointee and member of the right-wing Federalist Society — simply wasn’t having it.
In his ruling, the judge called Walters’ claims “nothing more than conjecture,” noting that the schools chief had completely failed to show that his work had been impeded.
Heil wrote:
The Complaint alleges that Defendant ‘has interfered with and will continue to interfere with [Plaintiffs’] statutory authority to govern Oklahoma’s public schools’ and further argues that ‘[d]eclaratory and injunctive relief is both necessary and proper to ensure that [Plaintiffs] can faithfully execute their duties, as well as protect the constitutional rights of Oklahoma’s public school students.’ ... Plaintiffs clarify in their response that they have been injured because Defendant has infringed on their ‘statutory and constitutional authority to administer the public school system.’ ... However, this bare assertion is neither concrete nor particularized. How do Defendant’s letters interfere with Plaintiffs’ authority or ability to administer Oklahoma’s public schools? In what way are Plaintiffs precluded from administering Oklahoma’s public schools because of Defendant’s letters? What have Plaintiffs intended to do, but have been unable to, because of Defendant’s letters? The Complaint does not answer these questions. Plaintiffs have not alleged that they have suffered some actual or threatened injury. Plaintiffs’ generalized statement of injury is nothing more than conjecture.
Heil’s ruling essentially laid waste to Walters’ claim that having to respond to the accusations of unconstitutional application of religion in schools — which falls under his department’s purview — detracts from his ability to carry out official duties.
“Both things cannot be true,” he said. “Plaintiffs cannot be both performing their duties by addressing the letters and impeded from performing their duties by addressing the letters.”
Walters has long sought to portray himself as an archconservative, Christian champion for the erasure of church-state separations in public schools. That his latest effort just earned him the legal equivalent of a swift kick in the rear from a Trump-appointed judge speaks to just how absurd and meritless it was.
Oklahoma’s right-wing schools chief, Ryan Walters, received a stern rebuke this week as a Trump-appointed federal judge tossed out a baseless lawsuit filed by Walters to try to silence a religious freedom organization.
Between a brewing pornography scandal and this court loss, Walters’ past few weeks have been rather eventful.
Walters has pushed to convert Oklahoma’s public schools into hubs of right-wing religious indoctrination, through controversies such as his promotion of Bible-infused lesson plans and his attempt to require that schools show students a propaganda video of him praying for Donald Trump and attacking liberals. The court case that was just tossed involved a lawsuit Walters filed in an attempt to stop the Freedom From Religion Foundation — an organization focused on preventing theocratic rule in the U.S. — from sending letters to Oklahoma school districts raising legal concerns about accounts of school officials proselytizing to students, such as with school-sponsored prayer and Bible readings.
The lawsuit baselessly claimed that the group’s advocacy “has interfered with and will continue to interfere with” Oklahoma education officials’ ability to do their work. And U.S. District Court Judge John Heil — a Trump appointee and member of the right-wing Federalist Society — simply wasn’t having it.
In his ruling, the judge called Walters’ claims “nothing more than conjecture,” noting that the schools chief had completely failed to show that his work had been impeded.
Heil wrote:
The Complaint alleges that Defendant ‘has interfered with and will continue to interfere with [Plaintiffs’] statutory authority to govern Oklahoma’s public schools’ and further argues that ‘[d]eclaratory and injunctive relief is both necessary and proper to ensure that [Plaintiffs] can faithfully execute their duties, as well as protect the constitutional rights of Oklahoma’s public school students.’ ... Plaintiffs clarify in their response that they have been injured because Defendant has infringed on their ‘statutory and constitutional authority to administer the public school system.’ ... However, this bare assertion is neither concrete nor particularized. How do Defendant’s letters interfere with Plaintiffs’ authority or ability to administer Oklahoma’s public schools? In what way are Plaintiffs precluded from administering Oklahoma’s public schools because of Defendant’s letters? What have Plaintiffs intended to do, but have been unable to, because of Defendant’s letters? The Complaint does not answer these questions. Plaintiffs have not alleged that they have suffered some actual or threatened injury. Plaintiffs’ generalized statement of injury is nothing more than conjecture.
Heil’s ruling essentially laid waste to Walters’ claim that having to respond to the accusations of unconstitutional application of religion in schools — which falls under his department’s purview — detracts from his ability to carry out official duties.
“Both things cannot be true,” he said. “Plaintiffs cannot be both performing their duties by addressing the letters and impeded from performing their duties by addressing the letters.”
Walters has long sought to portray himself as an archconservative, Christian champion for the erasure of church-state separations in public schools. That his latest effort just earned him the legal equivalent of a swift kick in the rear from a Trump-appointed judge speaks to just how absurd and meritless it was.
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