Oklahoma teacher’s certificate revoked over largely unenforceable law

OKLAHOMA CITY ( KFOR ) — A federal court filing Thursday revealed State Superintendent Ryan Walters and members of the Oklahoma State Board of Education (OSBE) chose to revoke a former Norman teacher’s teaching certificate last month because they believed she violated House Bill 1775—a law the state is, in large part, not allowed to enforce.

Walters and OSBE members voted unanimously on revoking the teaching certificate of former Norman teacher, Summer Boismier, at their meeting on August 22.

At the time, they did not provide the public any copies of their revocation order.

Last week, U.S. District Court Judge, Charles Goodwin, ordered Walters and board members to provide him with their official revocation order and meeting minutes, as well as any other documents to explain why they voted to revoke her license by Thursday, September 12.

On Thursday, Walters and OSBE members partially complied with Goodwin, giving him their revocation order for Boismier’s certificate.

The revocation order, obtained by News 4, indicates Walters and the board revoked Boismier’s certificate because they believe she “willfully violated” Oklahoma laws, including the state’s so-called ‘anti-CRT’ law, House Bill 1775.

The revocation order indicates it was written on June 27, however, it was not approved until OSBE’s August 22 meeting, when they took a unanimous vote.

“She broke the law,” Walters said of Boismier after the meeting. “When you have a teacher that breaks the law, says she broke the law, says she’ll continue to break the law… that can’t stand.”

The order said Boismier “intended to entice her students to seek out and read” inappropriate books by posting a QR code linked to a public library’s website in her classroom back in 2021.

“Boismier willfully violated OAC 210:10-29-2, OAC 210:20-29-3, and OAC 210:20-29-4 by circumventing district policy and 70 O.S. §24-157 (then HB 1775). Such violation supports the revocation of Boismier’s teaching certificate,” the revocation order says.

That paragraph of the order also includes a footnote, indicating Walters and the board believe the revocation order is still valid, despite a federal judge’s order banning Oklahoma from enforcing most of HB 1775 while a lawsuit challenging the house bill is being heard.

“Nothing in this Order is intended to rely on provisions of 70 O.S. §24-157 (HB 1775) that are subject to or contrary to the Order on Preliminary Injunction issued in [the federal lawsuit challenging HB 1775],” the footnote on the revocation order said.

The footnote said “nothing” in the order relied on the parts of HB 1775 that the judge ordered, could not to be enforced. It did not cite which enforceable parts of HB 1775 it did rely on.

“They didn’t even dissect anything out of 1775,” said State Sen. Mary Boren (D-Norman). “I think that’s very curious to me that that they think that they can get away with enforcing House Bill 1775 and try to cover themselves in a footnote.”

Footnote or not, Boren says it shouldn’t matter, because a fact-finding investigation by the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office last year found Boismier didn’t “willfully violate” any law at all — including HB 1775.

In that investigation, the state’s fact-finder concluded Boismier’s certificate should not be revoked.

“So now in front of a federal court, they’re persisting to prove or show how a teacher violated House bill 1775,” Boren said. “And as they’re doing it, they’re disregarding fact-finder’s conclusions.”

Boismier’s attorney sent News 4 the following statement on Thursday in response to the release of her revocation order:

“As we expected, the order we received today doesn’t hold up to any serious scrutiny. It should be an easy call for the courts to overturn it, since Walters chose to throw out the actual facts and law in the case to get the results he wanted and campaigned on. We will be heading to district court soon to do that. But sadly, until we get that court order, Oklahoma teachers now apparently have to fear getting their licenses revoked for criticizing the wrong politician or showing students how to get a library card.”

“It’s just a way for them to sanitize their intent,” Boren said. “And their intent is to enforce House Bill 1775 against teachers in Oklahoma, even though the federal court told them that that they can’t do that.”

News 4 reached out to the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) to ensure their side could be included in this report.

News 4 also asked OSDE’s spokesperson to specifically clarify how the footnote does not contradict the reasons cited earlier in the revocation order, but did not receive a response.

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