When people in power suddenly resign, it’s rarely as clean as the press releases I used to write about make it seem. I’ve been around long enough, both in politics and public relations, to know that “new opportunities” can sometimes be code for “get out while you still can.”
Now, I’m going to couch that with not always, but in instances where the person in question harbors intentions of moving up the ladder, a quick exit usually leaves people scratching their heads, and wondering “Why so fast?”
I’ve helped manage executives out the door after #MeToo scandals, financial impropriety, and even an affair with a subordinate. In each case, they didn’t step down into plum roles that matched their ambition. Instead, they usually disappeared or took smaller, less visible jobs, a soft landing to avoid the boiling pot of controversy.
That’s why I’m scratching my head at the sudden but maybe not surprising resignation of the horrific education leader in Oklahoma, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters. Not so much about his resignation, because he was a disaster, but where he’s going.
Related: Far-right Oklahoma schools head Ryan Walters had nude women on TV during meeting: report
Walters resigned to lead a tiny nonprofit, Teacher Freedom Alliance. I’ve never heard of it, and I think most who follow the news can say the same thing. So to me, this isn’t the normal trajectory for a politician who’s spent years posturing for higher office.
Or someone who can’t make ends meet on a government salary and opts for bigger paychecks in the private sector.
Politicians who get fed up with the job or lose elections typically use their time in office as a springboard to lucrative corporate roles or lobbying gigs. For example, President Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe, for instance, went from politics to a high-powered executive role at Uber.
And many of my friends who worked on Capitol Hill went on to make real money in public affairs. That’s how it usually goes.
But Walters? Instead of climbing up, he’s sinking down or at least going sideways. For a man who made no secret about his aspirations to be governor, this move hints of retreat, not ambition.
Now, having said all that, maybe retreat was the only thing left for him, because Walters wasn’t just a bad superintendent. He was dangerous. In fact, he was so bad that even fellow GOPers in the state legislature were considering impeaching him, not once but twice.
Under his leadership, Oklahoma schools slid to dead last in the nation, at this writing they are ranked 50th. That alone should have been enough to show him the proverbial classroom door. But what defined Walters wasn’t just incompetence. It was maliciousness.
He was obsessed with culture war crusades,all at the expense of children’s safety and education, teachers’ dignity and curricula, families’ freedom, and dare I say, sanity.
Walters did so much damage, like trying to force Bibles into classrooms. And if that wasn’t bad enough, he wanted those Bibles to be Trump-branded Bibles. Blasphemy of the highest order.
That wasn’t all. He demanded that schools push Trumpist doctrine. He promoted Turning Point USA in high schools. He harassed educators who supported the freedom to read, appeared arm-in-arm with the national book-banning group Moms for Liberty, and billed Oklahoma taxpayers for the trip.
He appointed a social media troll with no ties to Oklahoma, no background in literacy or education, and a history of spreading lies about LGBTQ+ people to a state library panel tasked with recommending materials for children.
But Walters’s attacks on the LGBTQ+ community and on vulnerable children in particular are what will mark his tenure as truly disgraceful,and disgusting.
He spread disinformation about transgender youth, producing and promoting videos that wrongly accused them of being threats in schools. The reality? Thirty-five percent of transgender students report being assaulted in bathrooms that don’t align with their gender identity. Walters knew this, or should have, but he chose to fuel hysteria instead of protecting kids.
He denied the existence and history of Two-Spirit and gender-expansive people, including within Indigenous cultures in his own state. This came after the bullying, beating, and death of Nex Benedict, a Two-Spirit transgender gender-nonconforming teenager of Choctaw heritage.
I spoke with the mothers of Matthew Shepard and Tyler Clementi about Benedict’s death, Walters’s words, and how it not only brought back immense pain but also showed that the fight for queer youth’s rights and dignity needs to continue.
Walters pushed book bans to strip classrooms and libraries of inclusive stories that let LGBTQ+ students see themselves. He spread disinformation about history, going so far as to deny that the Tulsa Massacre was a racist attack. Unbelievably racist.
His warped thought process was that if history or literature didn’t fit his narrow, extremist worldview, it didn’t belong in Oklahoma schools.
And while Walters played his dangerous games, hate crimes in schools climbed. Oklahoma has become a case study in how restrictive laws against LGBTQ+ students directly correlate to increased violence.
Teachers saw it. Students felt it. Parents feared it. Walters ignored it, or worse, exploited it. And that, in and of itself, should be grounds for impeachment.
So forgive me if I don’t buy the official story of his resignation. Not for a second. It’s too abrupt, too strange, too off-brand for a man who always saw himself as destined for more and the arbiter of what should go on in classrooms.
He loved the limelight, and I’m sure he’s going to miss his hell-bent appearances on Newsmax.
If history and my experience are any guide, we may learn later what really pushed this narcissist zealot out. Maybe there’s a scandal we don’t yet know about. Maybe even his allies had grown tired of the chaos. Either way, Walters didn’t leave because he wanted to; I believe he left because he had to.
Regardless, Walters deserves exactly what he’s getting, and I hope that includes obscurity, irrelevance, and a long, silent fade into nothingness.
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This article originally appeared on Advocate: The fall of Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters and the questions around his resignation