Ryan Walters, the anti-LGBTQ+, right-wing Christian Oklahoma superintendent of public instruction, had a program with images of nude women on his office TV during a state Board of Education meeting Thursday, according to two board members.
Becky Carson and Ryan Deatherage told NonDoc they saw the images during the executive session portion of the meeting. They were the only ones seated to have a view of the screen, they said.
“I was like, ‘What am I seeing?’ I kind of was in shock, honestly. I started to question whether I was actually seeing what I was seeing,” Carson said. “I was like, ‘Is that woman naked?’ And then I was like, ‘No, she’s got a body suit on.’ And it happened very quickly, I was like, ‘That is not a body suit.’ And I hate to even use these terms, but I said, ‘Those are her nipples.’ And then I was looking closer, and I got a full-body view, and I was like, ‘That is pubic hair.’ Even right now, I couldn’t even tell you what I was watching.”
She confronted Walters about it, she said.
“I was so disturbed by it, that I was like — very loudly and boastfully, like I was a parent or a teacher — I said, ‘What is on your TV? What am I watching?’” she continued. “He was like, ‘What? What are you talking about?’ He stood up and saw it. He made acknowledgment that he saw it. And I said, ‘Turn it off. Now.’ And he was like, ‘What is this? What is this?’ So he acknowledged it was inappropriate just by those words. And he was like, ‘I can’t get it to turn off. I can’t figure out how to turn it off.’ And I said, ‘Get it turned off.’ So he finally got it turned off, and that was the end of it. He didn’t address it. He didn’t apologize. Nothing was said.”
“I don’t know if he turned it off or switched the channel, I don’t remember,” Deatherage said. “I was surprised that when he came back to the table, he was not apologetic. I didn’t ever hear an apology for that being on, and he didn’t seem to be fazed that it was on.” He and Carson said Walters should be held accountable for the incident.
Walters’s director of communications, Quinton Hitchcock, responded to NonDoc by email Friday. “What an absolute joke of a story and this is embarrassing from you to write a junk tabloid lie,” he wrote. “Any number of people have access to these offices, you have a hostile board who will say and do anything except tell the truth, and now, ‘NonsenseDoc’ is reporting on an alleged random TV cable image. Rock solid truth in journalism.”
NonDoc notes that Walters, a Republican, “has repeatedly railed against ‘sexual material’ during his term as state superintendent, equating certain books to ‘pornography’ and attempting to ban them from school libraries.” He has also denied the existence of transgender and nonbinary people and wants to teach the Bible in public schools. Walters has sometimes proved to be too much even for fellow Republicans, as some have called for his impeachment.
During the open session of Thursday’s meeting, Walters discussed plans to test teachers moving in from liberal states to make sure they don’t bring so-called woke ideas to Oklahoma classrooms.
State legislators are responding to the NonDoc report. “Shocked would be maybe an understatement a little bit,” House Common Education Committee Chairman Dick Lowe, a Republican, told the site. He said he couldn’t see the TV screen during the time he was in the executive session, but he has spoken to both Carson and Deatherage. He has reported the situation to House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, he said. Hilbert is also a Republican.
“We’re going to find out what the law says we do,” Lowe said. “We’re not going to try to make law or devise plans or anything like that. We’re going to find out what are the appropriate steps. I’ve talked to the speaker. We’re going to do the right thing.”
House Democratic Leader Cyndi Munson issued a statement saying, “Regardless of if recent allegations are true, Oklahomans are in dire need of new leadership at the Oklahoma State Department of Education. While we wait for more information, we will follow the guidance of the Speaker and trust that any alleged moral or criminal wrongdoings will be thoroughly investigated.” Her statement was reported by Oklahoma City TV station KWTV.
The station also quoted a statement from Oklahoma Democratic Party Chair John Waldron. “It’s not a surprising coincidence that news of Oklahoma’s schools falling to 50th in the nation arrived within hours of reports of the State Superintendent airing porn in his office,” he said. “Ryan Walters’ leadership is a moral failure and an institutional failure, and our students are paying the price.”
Republican Sen. Adam Pugh said Walters, Carson, and Deatherage all should have the opportunity to give their side of the story. “I appreciate the efforts by everyone who are taking these allegations seriously,” he said in a statement, according to KWTV. “We’ll be watching closely as more information comes to light.”
This article originally appeared on Advocate: Far-right Oklahoma schools head Ryan Walters had nude women on TV during meeting: report