After more than an hour of private discussions behind U.S. District Judge Bernard Jones’ courtroom, attorneys for State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters and KFOR struck an agreement this morning to settle a lawsuit alleging that Walters violated First Amendment protections by singling out and prohibiting Channel 4 journalists from accessing public meetings and press conferences.
As part of the settlement, the Oklahoma State Department of Education must pay $17.91 in damages to KFOR — a numerical reference to 1791, the year the Bill of Rights and its First Amendment were ratified in America.
“This is a huge victory for journalism,” Institute for Free Speech attorney Charles Miller told reporters outside the courthouse. “What happened today is the state school board superintendent decided that rather than go to trial and face that, they would grant KFOR everything that it was asking for in the case. It’s very clear that the defendants all along admitted it that they were doing this because they did not like what KFOR was reporting.”
Two months after Jones had granted KFOR a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction requiring Walters to grant the TV station’s reporters access to State Board of Education meetings and press conferences, the parties returned to U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma on Wednesday for what could have been a bench trial featuring testimony from Walters, KFOR employees and State Department of Education communications director Dan Isett. Like Walters, Isett was named as a defendant both in his personal and professional capacities after placing his hands on Brown to block him from asking Walters questions on July 31.
“I appreciate the professionalism for all who have reached [this settlement],” Jones said Wednesday. “I am going to sign off on this agreement, and I am going to award you 60 days (to decide attorney fees) due to the holidays.”
The KFOR lawsuit settlement includes a continuance of the temporary restraining order and a permanent injunction that blocks Walters and Isett from the tactics they had previously employed to block the station’s reporters from observing the state superintendent at public meetings and asking questions afterward. According to the agreed final judgment and permanent injunction, Walters and Isett must:
- Grant access for KFOR to all OSDE board meetings, press conferences, gaggles or other meetings held in which other news media are given nonexclusive access;
- Grant KFOR’s access to the RSVP notices OSDE sends to journalists prior to each meeting;
- Grant KFOR inclusion on the email distribution list for all OSDE press releases and notifications related to OSDE activities, following a meeting between KFOR’s news director and Isett at KFOR studios;
- Grant KFOR’s access to all OSDE “statements” issued to members of the general press in response to daily press inquiries; and
- Re-establish the media line outside State Board of Education meetings for journalists wishing to attend those meetings, “subject to security concerns that may arise.”
KFOR lawsuit background
KFOR and NexStar filed the federal lawsuit Sept. 23 after being the only members of the press routinely being relegated to a media overflow room during board meetings. KFOR journalists had also been prohibited from attending the press gatherings held after most meetings.
Two days later, Jones issued the temporary restraining order, stating that denying KFOR access to state board meetings and related press conferences would cause “irreparable harm,” especially when First Amendment rights “are at stake.”
Prior to and during litigation, Isett has repeatedly referred to KFOR as “fake news” and has openly discussed the organization’s alleged lack of commitment toward journalistic ethics — reasons Isett and Walters deemed the cause of their restrictions.
Attorneys for KFOR with the local law firm Hall Estill and the national Institute for Free Speech had sought the temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to prohibit Walters and Isett “from denying plaintiffs access to the room in which Oklahoma State Board of Education meetings are held; denying plaintiffs access to and participation in Walters’ press conferences; and physically obstructing, touching, or impeding plaintiffs’ reporters when they do access the in-person Oklahoma State Board of Education meetings or Walters’ press conferences.”
In an affidavit, plaintiff and KFOR reporter Dylan Brown described the July 31 exchange where Isett placed his hands on Brown to prevent him from following Walters down a flight of stairs at the State Capitol. The interaction was caught on video and posted on Brown’s Twitter account, garnering further online discourse and criticism of the controversial state superintendent.
Walters, a regular critic of media who recently called Tulsa World employees “leftist loons,” has been sued by numerous parties since taking office in January 2023. Concerns that he cares more about national media exposure than running the expansive state agency have led to legislative inquiries and tension at the State Capitol. Walters’ tenure has spurred a lengthy federal report about how OSDE has managed U.S. Department of Education funding, and his handling of pandemic-era emergency relief funds has drawn criminal investigation by state and federal law enforcement. Those investigations have yielded only a highly critical state grand jury report, which Gov. Kevin Stitt’s office panned as “an inappropriate and unlawful use of a grand jury.”
Despite Miller’s statement that Walters and Isett admitted to violating the First Amendment because they did not like “what KFOR was reporting,” OSDE attorney Michael Beason specified in court that the defendants were not admitting guilt. Asked about Beason’s comment, KFOR’s attorneys hinted at the concept of res ipsa loquitor — the thing speaks for itself.
“The permanent injunction is the concession,” IFS attorney Cortney Corbello said. “It’s a great concession. They are now — in perpetuity — enjoined from behaving the way they’ve been behaving, which is wonderful.”
Walters, whose formal request for a jury trial was denied by Jones, declined to discuss the KFOR lawsuit as he and Isett exited the courthouse Wednesday.
“Nope,” Walters said. “No comment.”
Later Wednesday, Brown tweeted, “We did it!!” Isett responded by claiming, “KFOR got nothing of what their lawsuit asked for,” and he alleged that Brown “lied in his deposition.” Further bickering ensued.
Shortly before 3 p.m., Walters tweeted a screenshot of a KFOR headline claiming the TV station “wins” the lawsuit.
“The Oklahoma news media and @kfor won the fake news award,” Walters said. “They lie to the public, lie to themselves, and as the leading liberal media outlet in our state they will continually be held accountable.”
KFOR lawsuit final judgment
(Update: This article was updated at 3:05 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 11, to include additional sniping on social media.)
