A narrow 5-4 majority of the Oklahoma Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down the 2025 Oklahoma Academic Standards for Social Studies, finding the State Board of Education violated the Open Meeting Act by not providing proper notice about changes within the new standards.
While declining to rule on any constitutional challenge raised against the religious nature of some of the social studies standards, a majority of the justices in Randall v. Fields née Walters found the social studies standards adopted at the board’s February meeting were “fundamentally different” from the standards initially listed on the agenda and therefore violated the requirement for public notice.
“We conclude the notice of the agenda for the 2025 standards violated [Title 25, Section 311 (A)(9)] of the Open Meeting Act when the public body used the agenda items in the notice for the purpose of adopting fundamentally different substantive standards not placed on the notice of the agenda. The board’s notice of the agenda was not sufficient to apprise the public of the substantive standards being considered for adoption,” Justice James Edmondson wrote in the majority opinion. “The 2025 Oklahoma Academic Standards for Social Studies shall not be enforced. The 2019 Oklahoma Academic Standards for Social Studies remain in effect until the state board properly creates new Oklahoma academic standards for social studies with subsequent legislative approval.”
On Feb. 27, the State Board of Education — then chaired by former Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters — approved new academic standards for social studies that included requirements for students to learn about “discrepancies” in the 2020 presidential election.
As NonDoc reported March 12, State Board of Education members said they were not alerted about how the proposed standards had been revised by Walters’ staff following a December and January public comment period. Those adjustments from the original proposal were not posted online for public review, and a packet of documents shared with board members before the meeting contained no reference to the new changes.
According to the majority opinion, the updated — but unexplained — standards proposal was provided to members a mere 17 hours before their meeting, which Edmondson said violated the Open Meeting Act.
“A notice of 17 hours violates [Title 25, Section 311 (A)(9)]. One portion of this argument is notice of the agenda was insufficient, because the 2025 standards adopted by the board on Feb. 27, 2025, were not the same standards available to the public and the board 24 hours prior to the meeting,” Edmondson explained.
After The Rev. Mitch Randall and public school parents sued over the situation, the implementation of the revised 2025 standards was put on a temporary hold by the Supreme Court in September, and the State Board of Education unanimously approved a motion to review the standards for 60 days at its October meeting.
Edmondson was joined by Justices James Winchester, Douglas Combs, Noma Gurich and Richard Darby in the majority opinion. Justices Dustin Rowe and M. John Kane IV dissented together, arguing the court should have denied the request for original jurisdiction and allowed the case to play out in district court — a familiar discussion for the court in recent months.
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“By assuming original jurisdiction to address petitioners’ claim that respondents violated the act, the majority has stripped the parties’ right to develop a complete factual record and litigate whether respondents violated the act,” Rowe wrote. “I would decline to assume original jurisdiction, as the more appropriate course is for the parties to develop a complete factual record and litigate the alleged act violations and whether they were willful in the trial court.”
Two special justices were appointed to handle the social studies standards case after Justices Dana Kuehn and Travis Jett recused. Each special justice wrote his own dissent.
Special Justice Thomas Prince, a member of the Court of Civil Appeals, argued the case should be remanded to the trial court.
“I would remand the entire matter to the appropriate trial court for a first instance determination of all of the various claims that have been asserted,” Prince wrote.
Special Justice Timothy Downing, also a member of the Court of Civil Appeals, wrote that the petition was “without merit” and said the court should have denied original jurisdiction. Downing, who served one term in the Oklahoma House of Representatives, argued that because the Legislature de-facto approved the standard revisions by choosing not to vote on the issue, the standards were approved by lawmakers, who are not held to the Open Meeting Act’s requirements.
“Respondents argue petitioners are seeking a ‘judicial veto’ of the standards the Legislature approved. I agree,” Downing wrote. “To be clear, the standards being challenged are not those approved by the board, but at this time they are instead those approved by the Legislature. [Title 70, Section 11-103.6a-1.] The Legislature is a separate branch of government from the board and reserved to itself ultimate authority over the standards. The Legislature intentionally approved the standards using its own policy making authority. Accordingly, the petitioners’ arguments challenging actions of the board which merely sent its desired new standards to the Legislature, cannot make void the subsequent and ultimate action of the legislative branch to amend, deny, or, in this case, approve new standards under its ultimate policy making authority.”
But Edmondson wrote that the February violation of the Open Meeting Act was plain, simple and even uncontested by the attorneys for Walters and new Superintendent Lindell Fields.
“The version of the standards approved by the board on Feb. 27, 2025, was not publicly posted until after the board voted on the 2025 standards,” Edmondson wrote. “Three board members stated in a subsequent meeting of the Board that they did not know that the version they were voting on was different from the version publicly posted in December 2024. Respondents do not contest these allegations.”
