Okla. education board bars pronoun changes without state approval

OKLAHOMA CITY – Despite a pending lawsuit in federal court, the Oklahoma Board of Education on Thursday made permanent a rule change that would prohibit schools and districts from altering sex or gender designations in past student records without the board’s authorization.

The proposal passed unanimously, with only four members present for a regular monthly meeting – barely a quorum on what’s currently a six-person board. The board approved a similar temporary rule on Sept. 28 and held a public hearing Dec. 18.

On Dec. 21, board members – including state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters – were served with a lawsuit filed by the Oklahoma Equality Law Center and the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice. The lawsuit is on behalf of a Moore Public Schools student, referred to in the lawsuit as “J. Doe,” whose request to change their pronouns in school records was unanimously denied by the board at its October meeting.

A student attending Cushing Public Schools also had a request to alter pronouns rejected by the board in October, despite court orders from state judges requiring the districts to make the changes.

Doe’s case has since been moved from Cleveland County District Court to U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City. No hearing dates are set.

The purpose of the rule change “is to prevent alteration of sex or gender designations in historical school records,” according to a statement on the Oklahoma State Department of Education’s website.

“The state Education Department has received notice that some students changing their sex or gender with parental consent are also seeking to remove prior records that accurately reflected their sex or gender during prior years. The rule will provide districts with clear authority to protect their historical records.”

Walters offered a full-throated defense of the rule change after Thursday’s board meeting.

“We’re not going to tolerate the woke Olympics in our schools, left-wing ideologues trying to push in this radical gender theory,” he said. “It is the most radical concept we’ve ever come across in K-12 education, that you can be gender-fluid (or) change your gender constantly.”

He said, without evidence, that “we’ve seen issues in schools where teachers have been targeted by individuals claiming that, ‘You’re not changing my gender or my pronouns every day.’ Look – we need to be worried about educating kids, so we’re not going to worry about what games the left continues to try to play with our kids.”

Joshua Payton, an attorney for the Oklahoma Equality Law Center, said the plaintiffs were “disappointed the board has continued to engage in executive overreach by passing invalid rules for which they lack authority.”

For the rules to go into effect, they still would need to be approved by the state Legislature and the governor.