A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by state school Superintendent Ryan Walters and the State Department of Education against an organization that cautioned a small southern Oklahoma school district about its religious practices.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a cease-and-desist letter dated Dec. 17, 2024, to Superintendent Rick Beene at Achille Public Schools in Bryan County approximately 12 miles south of Durant.
FFRF staff attorney Samantha F. Lawrence informed Beene that a “concerned parent” reported:
• School district policy allows teachers to read Bible verses at the start of their classes.
• District officials “informed students at the beginning of the school year that there would be ‘optional Bible verse readings in all of their classes.’”
• The complainant said 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.” The Bible verses “have no bearing on the actual subjects being taught and instead appear to be blatantly intended as a way to teach public school students the Bible in a devotional manner,” the parent asserted.
• The district has “a custom and practice of beginning each school day with ‘mandatory student-led prayer’ over the intercom systems” in Achille’s elementary school and high school. The complainant contends “this policy has been in effect, at least informally, for years.”
• “We’re informed that after the morning bell, a student announces ‘a moment of silence or prayer’ followed by the student praying over the intercom,” Lawrence wrote. “It’s our understanding this morning intercom prayer is taking place in both schools.”
• Students cannot skip the morning prayer “since it occurs after the first period has already started.” The district’s official student handbook states that a “student is tardy who is not in the student’s seat when the bell to begin the period sounds,” Lawrence related.
The Supreme Court of the United States “has recognized that “[f] amilies entrust public schools with the education of their children, but condition their trust on the understanding that the classroom will not purposely be used to advance religious views that may conflict with the private beliefs of the student and his or her family,” Lawrence wrote in her letter to Beene.
Matthew Oberdick, director of external relations at the Oklahoma State Department of Education, wrote a “declaration” in support of the lawsuit filed March 31 against the FFRF by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters and the Oklahoma State Department of Education.
Oberdick said Beene sent him a copy of the FFRF letter, “regarding what it described as ‘unconstitutional school-sponsored prayer and Bible readings.’” FFRF warned that the Achille school district “must cease permitting instructors to teach students Bible verses, and it must end its schools’ practice of beginning each day with school-sponsored student-led prayers.”
However, nothing in the FFRF’s letter threatened or even suggested a retaliatory measure by the organization.
“As part of a regular class day,” Oberdick wrote, “a student is chosen to lead morning announcements at Achille Elementary School.” Consistent with Title 70 of the Oklahoma Statutes, morning announcements “include a moment of silence in which students may ‘reflect, meditate, or pray,’” Oberdick said.
“On occasion, a student will voluntarily, and of his or her own accord, say a prayer during the moment of silence,” he said. No teacher, administrator or staff member “requires any student to lead a prayer” nor “compel or coerce any student to participate in student-led prayer,” Oberdick asserted.
An unnamed teacher at Achille High School, “in keeping with Superintendent Walters’ directive that the Bible may be used as a teaching tool and for its secular value … used biblical texts as part of his history lessons,” Oberdick continued. However, he wrote, the Bible “was not used for religious purposes.”
At no time, wrote Oberdick – whose office is in Oklahoma City, not in Achille – “has any student ever been compelled or coerced to lead any Achille public school in prayer, nor has any student been forced or coerced to participate in any mandatory prayer. At no time is any student compelled or coerced to read from the Bible, nor is the Bible used for any purpose other than its historical, secular value as a teaching resource.”
He then declared that his statement was “true and correct to the best of my knowledge, information, and belief.” State Board’s standards encourage Bible use In its complaint, the SDE wrote that “new and existing standards approved by the State Board of Education recognize and encourage use of the Bible,” particularly in high school history classes.
“The SBE’s curricular standards comport with [the] United States Supreme Court, which recognizes the secular value of the Bible.”
However, the Freedom From Religion Foundation “threatened the district with demands that Achille Public Schools administration must forbid its students from exercising their statutory and constitutional rights or face legal consequences.”
In his order dismissing the lawsuit, U.S. District Judge John Heil III in Muskogee’s Eastern District federal court noted that Walters and the State Department of Education alleged that the FFRF “has interfered with and will continue to interfere with [Plaintiffs’] statutory authority to govern Oklahoma’s public schools.”
The Foundation filed a motion to dismiss the case, citing four reasons: • Lack of legal standing.
• Failure to demonstrate subject matter jurisdiction.
• Filing a frivolous lawsuit targeting First Amendment protected expression pursuant to the Oklahoma Citizens Participation Act; and
• Failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted as required by Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
“Whether a plaintiff has … standing ‘is the threshold question in every federal case, determining the power of the court to entertain the suit,’” Heil explained.
To establish standing, a plaintiff must show “(1) ‘an injury in fact that is both concrete and particularized as well as actual or imminent’; (2) a causal relationship between the injury and the challenged conduct; and (3) a likelihood that the injury would be redressed by a favorable decision.”
Heil – who was appointed by President Trump – wrote that in this case, to establish “an injury in fact” Walters and the State Department of Education would have to demonstrate that they suffered “an invasion of a legally protected interest” that is “concrete and particularized” – meaning it must “actually exist and be real” and “affect the plaintiff in a personal and individual way” – and is “actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.”
Injury claim was only ‘conjecture’ The plaintiffs alleged they were injured because the FFRF infringed on their “statutory and constitutional authority to administer the school system.” However, Heil wrote, “this bare assertion is neither concrete nor particularized.” The plaintiffs’ generalized statement of injury is “nothing more than conjecture.”
Furthermore, Walters and the SDE “acknowledge that ‘[w]hen school districts are accused of violating either the Oklahoma Constitution or the policies and procedures implemented by the OSDE,” it is the agency’s responsibility to “address those accusations, make findings of fact and conclusions of law, and implement any necessary corrective measures.”
In essence, Heil wrote, the plaintiffs “concede that addressing the types of letters it complains of in this lawsuit is part of” their duties.
The judge also noted that while Walters and the SDE complained about the Foundation’s “continued interference with the day-to-day operations … of Oklahoma’s public schools,” they cited only two letters sent by the FFRF to two Oklahoma public schools in the past seven years.
“Undoubtedly the Plaintiffs have expended valuable time and resources in filing this lawsuit,” Heil wrote in a footnote. However, they “cannot manufacture standing merely by inflicting harm on themselves based on their fears of hypothetic future harm…” Also, the complaint does not allege that Achille’s schools “have ceased any policies or practices because of” the FFRF’s letters.
Walters and the SDE “have failed to show an injury in fact,” Heil concluded. Accordingly, they lack standing “and this Court lacks jurisdiction” so the lawsuit must be dismissed “without prejudice” – which means the plaintiffs could refile their claim if they choose to do so.
‘Frivolous lawsuit’ “We are so pleased that Ryan Walters’ frivolous lawsuit seeking to muzzle FFRF and our free speech rights was promptly dismissed,” Foundation Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor wrote in a prepared statement.
“It was an outrageous attempt by a Christian nationalist public official to attack FFRF’s work to uphold the First Amendment,” she charged. “FFRF will continue our vital work to protect the constitutional rights of students and families around the nation, including in Oklahoma.”
In a statement he issued at the time, Walters vowed that Oklahoma “will never be bullied by radical, out-of-state atheists who use intimidation and harassment against kids.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation “has no stake in our schools, no authority over our communities, and absolutely no right to trample on the First Amendment,” he said. “Their threats are nothing more than a desperate attempt to erase faith from public life, and we will fight them at every turn.”