Senator denied entry to Ryan Walters' executive session intends to file suit

OKLAHOMA CITY — A state senator says she intends to take the state’s top school board, the state superintendent and the Oklahoma State Department of Education to court after she was denied entry to a closed-door meeting last week.

Sen. Mary Boren, D-Norman, said she’s deciding whether to pursue legal action through the Attorney General’s Office, the Oklahoma County district attorney or a private lawsuit.

Boren attempted to attend the private executive session of the Oklahoma State Board of Education on Thursday, citing a law that allows state legislators to listen to portions of state board meetings that are closed to the rest of the public. A lawmaker must sit on a related committee in the state Legislature to be allowed entry.

Boren is a member of an appropriations subcommittee focusing on education funding and on the Senate Judiciary Committee, among other panels.

State Superintendent Ryan Walters said the board’s legal counsel saw it as an attorney-client privilege issue to allow her to attend.

Boren said Walters, who leads the board, and his administration blocked her from trying to hold his agency to account.

“It’s very disappointing that that’s where we’re at now, is that law and order is just a one-sided thing with them and it doesn’t apply to him,” Boren said. “He is leading an agency that really impacts the lives of children and Oklahomans all throughout our state in a way that doesn’t want to be held accountable.”

Executive sessions are closed to the public — but generally, not to lawmakers in Oklahoma

Executive sessions are held in private so a board can receive confidential information from its attorney, often about pending legal cases, investigations or a process — like purchasing property or hiring employees — that could be jeopardized if the conversations were to take place in public.

Still, state law allows legislators to listen in, and it makes no stipulations about denying them attendance over attorney-client confidentiality.

Refusing to allow entry to a state lawmaker who sits on a relevant committee would be a violation of Oklahoma Open Meetings Act, said Phil Bacharach, spokesperson for Attorney General Gentner Drummond.

Bacharach confirmed Boren has been in contact with the AG’s Office about the matter.

Anyone who willfully violates the Open Meetings Act could be found guilty of a misdemeanor, fined up to $500 and jailed for up to a year, according to state law.

Legislators have been permitted to attend the state Board of Education’s executive session before. Other state agencies also have complied.

Rep. Mark McBride, R-Moore, said he has attended the Board of Education’s executive session. McBride, the leader of the House subcommittee on education funding, said he also did so several times with the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, the University of Oklahoma Board of Regents and the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board.

In 2019, then-Rep. Sheila Dills, R-Tulsa, listened to the state Board of Education’s private discussion on investigations into Epic Charter Schools and educators facing suspension of their certification.

Boren said she was interested in all of the items up for discussion in executive session on Thursday. The issues ranged from suspending teaching licenses to student transfer requests.

State Sen. Mary Boren says she intends to try to attend executive sessions again

As a state senator overseeing education funding, Boren said she wanted to know if the board would consider the potential risk of costly litigation and the expense to taxpayers when making its decisions. Walters and the board already have been sued multiple times.

But when she tried to enter the private meeting, the board’s general counsel, Cara Nicklas, stopped her, she said.

Boren said Nicklas questioned whether the senator’s committees related to any of the executive session items and contended it would violate attorney-client confidentiality for the lawmaker to attend.

Boren, a practicing attorney, said she tried to argue her case and offered to sign a pledge to keep whatever she heard secret, but it was to no avail. She returned to the public meeting room and later left.

She said she intends to try again in the future.

“I think we don’t have enough people in positions of power, holding (accountable) Ryan Walters and politicians that go rogue and don’t want to follow the law,” Boren said. “And I feel like it’s a duty and responsibility to have a court of some sort respond to that violation of the Open Meetings Act.”

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