State Superintendent Ryan Walters’ name plate and gavel sit on the meeting table of the Oklahoma State Board of Education on May 23, 2024, in Oklahoma City. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice)
Ryan Walters and his merry band of administrative leaders should not be operating the State Department of Education like their own private fiefdom, oblivious to the laws that govern public access.
Yet our state superintendent and those leaders he’s entrusted to serve us appear to be happily doing just that in denying access to one of the most basic records that’s long been released through our state’s Open Records Act — resignation letters.
And Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s office, which is supposed to help enforce open records laws, has strangely — and inexplicably — been sitting on the sidelines like a stupified observer as this continues to play out.
Walters has seen a number of senior employees exit stage left for greener pastures. He also leads an agency whose administrators have proven that they’re not the strongest champions of laws that govern public access. After all, they lost a lawsuit that accused agency leaders of violating First Amendment rights related to public meeting access and face another that contends the Education Department is not complying with the Open Records Act.
The latest dustup involves a request Oklahoma Voice filed earlier this year seeking access to all employee resignation letters submitted since Jan. 1. The agency issued a blanket denial, citing a provision of law that it claims bars the release to protect employee privacy and one that allows public bodies to keep documents private if they pertain to an internal personnel investigation.
As far as we can tell, there’s no indication that any of these employees are subject to any investigation, and for any state agency to inaccurately cite a provision of law inferring such would be reckless and potentially damaging to someone’s reputation. One would also hope that there weren’t personnel investigations into multiple high-level employees because that would indicate Walters’ is making really bad hires.
Normally resignation letters are as dry as parched earth, and pretty much every other state agency I can think of typically releases them without issue. Even the State Department of Education used to do so without batting an eye.
I’ve never seen a blanket denial like this.
That’s why it’s so odd that the Department of Education has chosen this hill to die on, and that Drummond’s office, which lawmakers have empowered to help the public fight for open records access, has sat idly by, seemingly wringing its hands.
A recently leaked scathing resignation letter may shine some light on why the Education Department is so reluctant to release them.
The Education Department’s former chief compliance officer wrote in her resignation letter that the agency has “fundamental operational issues” and “senior leadership attitudes” that will need to be addressed in order to “achieve the outcomes that Oklahoma students deserve.”
She also leveled accusations of “manipulation of school accreditation and deleting employee review processes,” but did not include specifics.
In short, the letter portrays a very unflattering portrait of the inner workings of an agency that receives over $3.8 billion in annual state appropriations and raises questions about its operational integrity.
That’s something the public deserves to know. And it’s why the access to resignation letters should be an undisputed right.
Our state is one that believes — or at least used to — that “people are vested with the inherent right to know and be fully informed about their government.” And that access to government records helps Oklahomans “efficiently and intelligently exercise their inherent political power.”
That’s straight from the state’s Open Records Act. It’s also why Oklahoma agencies have done the right thing and provided resignation letters without argument, particularly for high-ranking officials.
It boggles the mind that the Attorney General’s Office, which is supposed to have a public records ombudsman to fight for public access, has refused to intervene in this issue and insist upon their release. It’s even stranger because last year, Drummond took a swipe at Walters following what he called an “alarming number of complaints” of his agency’s poor compliance with the state’s records act and sent a sign he wasn’t going to stand for it.
But ahead of the publication of our story highlighting our records battle, the Attorney General’s Office and its “public access counselor” refused to comment or address our complaint because of a pending lawsuit involving a single resignation letter.
I could see not releasing a single letter that’s subject to litigation, but to allow an agency to issue a blanket denial to withhold all undisputed ones is nuts. There seems to be no reason Drummond couldn’t have advocated to release the rest.
Unless, that is, his office wants to keep our government shrouded in secrecy or he doesn’t believe the public should view resignation letters written by public employees.
The fight over resignation letters at the state Department of Education proves why lawmakers need to further strengthen public access laws, not water them down. If there’s any lingering doubt that these are public, maybe they need to spell it out.
This also highlights how critical strong advocacy from the Attorney General’s Office is in this realm.
Because it’s never a good idea to give a government bureaucrat absolute power to determine if the public is entitled to records. In the wrong hands that power can lead to unintended consequences, making government less accountable and accessible to the very people it is supposed to serve.
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