Oklahoma’s regulations leave little choice but to purchase specific Trump-endorsed Bible for public schools
Oklahoma school superintendent Ryan Walters continues to create disturbing church-state headlines in his quest to stock every public school classroom in the state with a copy of the Bible. Earlier this year, Walters issued an edict requiring schools in the state to place copies of the Bible, along with founding documents — like the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence — in every classroom.
Now, as The Oklahoman reports, the resulting request for bids to satisfy the requirement is so specific that it seems to leave only one option for which Bible the state can purchase: the controversial “God Bless the USA Bible” recently promoted by former President Donald Trump. From the article:
Bids opened Monday for a contract to supply the state Department of Education with 55,000 Bibles. According to the bid documents, vendors must meet certain specifications: Bibles must be the King James Version; must contain the Old and New Testaments; must include copies of the Pledge of Allegiance, Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights; and must be bound in leather or leather-like material.
The Bibles-in-classrooms directive already raises significant church-state issues. After all, a public school classroom should be a welcoming place of belonging for all students and parents regardless of their faith, not a place that invites religious indoctrination or seems to privilege one faith community over others (or privilege the practice of faith over the choice not to practice faith). But the “God Bless the USA” Bible would be an especially insidious choice for public school classrooms. As BJC Executive Director Amanda Tyler and General Counsel Holly Hollman explained in a Respecting Religion podcast episode earlier this year, this particular Bible, blending sacred texts with political documents, promotes Christian nationalism by “merging … Christianity and American civil religion into one book and selling it as if it’s a religious book.”
As The Oklahoman reports, some Oklahoma school officials are pushing back:
“We will not be forcing our teachers to do this,” Bixby Superintendent Rob Miller said on News Nation on Aug. 12. “As a Christian myself, the idea of diminishing the word of God to a mere classroom prop is a little repulsive to me, so we will not be complying with that directive of having a physical Bible in every classroom.”
Lastly, as former Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson explained, the request for proposals might – in addition to these other problems – violate state law:
“It appears to me that this bid is anything but competitive,” Edmondson said. “It adds to the basic specification other requirements that have nothing to do with the text. The special binding and inclusion of government documents will exclude almost all bidders. If the bid specs exclude most bidders unnecessarily, I could consider that a violation.”
To make matters worse, this scheme may also enmesh the state’s taxpayers in a fundraising ploy by a presidential campaign, since former President Trump reportedly receives commission on the sale of this particular Bible, embedding a campaign finance controversy inside a religious liberty debacle and insulting students and parents of all faiths in the process.
One taxpayer has already filed suit seeking an injunction to halt the purchase of the Trump-endorsed Bibles. A legislator has asked the state’s attorney general for a legal opinion on Walters’ scheme. Other legal challenges are sure to follow. Here’s hoping common sense wins out and public school students and their parents are treated with more respect than this wrong-headed proposal.
