The book banning movement is largely predicated upon a single proclaimed principle: “Won’t somebody please think of the children?” The racial history of the United States, LGBTQ+ issues…all are verboten because of their alleged threat to innocent and defenseless children. No area in the country better exemplifies this than my home state of Oklahoma where Ryan Walters, our state Superintendent of Public Instruction, has built his political career almost entirely on conservative “anti-Woke” policies (and diverting public funds to Christian schools).
For example, Walters—in an action Oklahoma’s Attorney General says is likely illegal—recently implemented a series of wide-ranging rules banning “pornographic materials” and “sexualized content” from the classrooms and libraries of K-12 schools and vocational centers. How can schools identify such material? Walters makes the task relatively simple: he created a list of four “pornographic” books, four “in the marketplace to monitor” and 190 additional books—the list of 190 dangerous books not-coincidentally duplicates the American Library Association’s Rainbow Book List of recommended LGBTQ+ literature (I have not compared to see whether he used the 2022 or 2023 list). Schools are required to submit every year a complete list of all books and resources in their collections and, should any of the forbidden books be found on a school’s list, that institution’s accreditation could be reduced. “I think if it’s in one school library, in one classroom, it’s too much,” he declares.
Walters’ crusade extends to individual teachers. Summer Boismier, in 2022 an English teacher at Norman (OK) High school, responded to increased restrictions on book access by covering the bookshelves in her classroom with red butcher paper and the label, “Books the state doesn’t want you to read,” and provided a QR code (with the message, “Definitely don’t scan this!”) on each cover through which students could access the book from the Brooklyn (NY) Public Library. Walters responded by calling for her teaching certification to be revoked and continues pushing—even though Boismier has since moved to Brooklyn (to work at the BPL) and Oklahoma’s assistant Attorney General says state officials have failed to prove she violated the law—vowing to successfully revoke her certification by August of this year. Boismier says Walters’ unrelenting vendetta has left her riddled with panic and suicidal.
All of these restrictions—and the ways in which they are used to justify the persecution of public educators—are ostensibly rooted in the desire to protect children. But is protecting innocent children the real motivation for such actions? We can see the answer by comparing the treatment of Summer Boismier—and potentially others like her—with the treatment of Philip Koons, currently (and, as we shall see, the currency is significant) the principal and football coach at Ringling (OK) High School.
Koons is a member of the Oklahoma Coaches Association Hall of Fame for his success on the football field, leading the Tuttle High School teams to state championships in 2001 and 2005, and the Ringling team to a championship in 2019 (he also led the Ringling track and field team to a state title). Unfortunately, his history is also deeply stained with allegations of abuse. In 2013, allegations of his verbally abusing at least one player at Tuttle High School were followed by his resignation a year later. Even though he claimed to retire to spend time with family, Koons shortly thereafter began coaching football at Clinton High School but resigned in 2016 after more allegations of verbal abuse and that, following a football game in which he was disappointed by the team’s performance, he exposed his genitals to the team and proclaimed, “Boys, this is a dick. You gotta have one of these to play football.” Koons denied the exposure incident (and the then-superintendent claimed an investigation of “probably 20 people” over that weekend left him “dang sure” nothing had occurred; parents claim previous district investigations of Koons’ behavior—there were apparently multiple investigations in a mere three years in Clinton alone—involved calling boys one-by-one into a room where Koons and other administrators would interrogate them) and therefore, even though he resigned as the football coach (again, he said, for the sake of his family), he continued as an administrator and teacher at the district’s middle school and as a strength and conditioning coach with district teams.
Despite this less-than-reputable history, Koons was hired as an administrator and coach by the Ringling school district in 2018 and, as noted above, rewarded the district by leading the football and track teams to state titles. In February of this year, however, Koons was placed on administrative leave following allegations of verbal abuse, using racial slurs about players and referees and, once again, public nudity involving teens. While these allegations do not involve Koons exposing himself, they do involve him requiring high school athletes to exercise in the nude; one student claims athletes suffered injured genitals from the exercises, while a former student alleges “there’s a lot of times he’s done stuff like that.” The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation has investigated the allegations and turned their findings over to the district attorney, and a lawyer representing at least ten students is taking legal action against the district.
Unfortunately, the story does not end here. While on administrative leave Koons was photographed continuing to associate with athletes and, even worse, was reinstated by the district superintendent as high school principal and football coach on June 1st. Still more, a planned student protest over the perceived threat to their safety in the school was allegedly stopped by teachers who barricaded school doors, and school employees have claimed to experience retaliation for their support of student complainants. Notably, while Ryan Walters at least gave a tepid statement of “We will continue to monitor the investigation as we have since the beginning, and support Superintendent Kent Southward’s decision” following the February allegations and administrative leave, he has said absolutely nothing about Koons’ reinstatement or the alleged suppression of concerns from youth and parents about student safety.
The discrepancy is obvious: Ryan Walters and other self-professed “parents’ rights” activists are feverishly working to push all thinking and literature about race and sex/gender issues—as well as the people represented by such thinking and literature—from Oklahoma public schools, while scrupulously refusing to address a situation regarding an individual with multiple allegations of not only verbal abuse but public nudity involving students. State Democratic Party chairperson Alicia Andrews gets to the heart of the matter,
Where is the outcry about these latest incidents? As leaders go after made-up concerns about nothing, we have serious issues with real indoctrination and grooming. Yet, because it does not serve their political narrative, Stitt and Walters remain silent about these horrific behaviors that have been reported…
If the real issue is the safety of children, where is the parent’s rights rhetoric regarding this? Or, do we only care if the predators are not dressed how we prefer? Our kids deserve leaders that pay attention to the real predators and stop with the fake outrage over books and drag queens…
The hypocrisy needs to stop. Creating solutions to non-existent problems for political points needs to stop. The more our leaders focus on a faux movement meant to divide and push fear, the more our children are exposed to real dangers. All sides of the aisle need to come together, work on legislation to protect our kids from the real harms in schools and the community, and stop the political posturing over contrived problems.
As Ms. Andrews asks, is the outrage from Ryan Walters and others over racial and LGBTQ+ literature anything more than a bigoted political vehicle? Given their lack of outrage over such a situation as Philip Koons’—who has been accused of actions which, if they had been levied against someone he or his supporters didn’t like, would have inspired Walters to sound the alarm about our need to “please think of the children”—it would appear the principle they really value is political opportunism.
Image: Ringling, Oklahoma (Source).
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