According to US News and World Report, the state of Oklahoma ranks 48th in the United States for its pre-K to 12th grade education system. But the current hot-button issue consuming the Oklahoma State Board of Education isn't about improving this position; it's about whether someone was streaming video of nude women gathered around a "chiropractic table" to a TV visible during a Board of Education meeting last week.
Indeed, so serious has the issue become that it has already progressed from a media complaint to a state probe to an Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office investigation in just a few days.
State House Speaker Kyle Hilbert (R) is already suggesting that Superintendent Ryan Walters, the state's hard-right head of education—the man who wants to put Bibles in every classroom—"unlock and turn over all relevant devices and fully cooperate with an investigation."
Making the whole thing even wilder is the behavior of Walters, who was running the meeting and whose staff is now pumping out official press releases with gloriously deranged headlines like "Response to the Most Absurd, False, and Gutter Political Attack from a Desperate, Failing Establishment."
According to his press release, Walters said that "any suggestion that a device of mine was used to stream inappropriate content on the television set is categorically false. I have no knowledge of what was on the TV screen during the alleged incident, and there is absolutely no truth to any implication of wrongdoing."
He added, "I will not be distracted. My focus remains on making Oklahoma the best state in the nation, in every category."
So what the heck is actually going on in Oklahoma? Let's rewind to last week.
“That is not a body suit”
The State Board of Education held a closed executive session on Thursday, July 24. Board members were gathered around a conference table. A television was visible to some members but not to Walters, who apparently had his back to it.
According to the minutes, the meeting opened with the Pledge of Allegiance and a salute to the Oklahoma state flag. ("I salute the flag of the State of Oklahoma. Its symbols of peace unite all people.") But then, as the board got down to business, board member Becky Carson noticed that the TV was displaying—well, I'll let Carson tell you through her own words to local media outlet NonDoc:
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... 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...
I was so disturbed by it, that I was like—very loudly and boastfully, like I was a parent or a teacher—I said [to Walters], "What is on your TV? What am I watching?" 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.
Another board member confirmed this description, calling the footage "retro" and saying that the nude women were standing around a "chiropractic table."
With Walters blowing off their concerns about what had just happened and why it had happened in the middle of a state education meeting, the two board members took their story to media outlets the next day. NonDoc and The Oklahoman both ran long pieces on it. Walters' office sent sarcastic statements calling the outlets "NonsenseDoc" and "The Woklahoman," respectively.
Oklahoma's legislative branch then got involved, opening an investigation into the incident through the state's Office of Management and Enterprise Services (OMES). According to Senate President Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton (R), "The accounts made public by board members paint a strange, unsettling scene that demands clarity and transparency."
By Monday, OMES had turned the matter over to the Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office, according to local TV station News 9.
So how does a television apparently meant for displaying charts and presentations start, midway through a meeting, showing nude women around a table? Who knows. I was once on a family trip to Europe with my relatives, and as a cousin flipped through channels on the lobby television set, hardcore pornography popped into view before a shocked group of parents, aunts, and uncles. A state office building in Oklahoma, however, seems unlikely to subscribe to these kinds of channels.
Judging by Walters' press release, the suspicion appears to be that someone in the room had a phone, tablet, or laptop connected to or previously paired with the television, and that the images were coming from that machine. But Walters specifically denies—if this is indeed what happened—that he was responsible.
With the Sheriff's Office on the case, though, we may soon find out exactly what's been going down at closed sessions of the Oklahoma Board of Education. And it promises to be far more interesting than a sentence like that would normally suggest.
