Oklahoma federal judge tosses former teacher’s lawsuit against Walters

OKLAHOMA CITY — An Oklahoma City federal judge on April 10 threw out a lawsuit against state Superintendent Ryan Walters that accused him of defaming a former Norman High School teacher whose classroom display against book censorship made national news.

U.S. District Judge Bernard Jones ruled that former teacher Summer Boismier made herself a public figure during the controversy and therefore would have to prove a higher standard of “actual malice” to win the defamation case. Actual malice is defined as having a reckless disregard for the truth or publicizing a statement while knowing it is false.

Jones decided Boismier’s lawsuit failed to prove that Walters committed actual malice when he accused her of sharing pornographic books with students and when he incorrectly claimed she had been fired from Norman Public Schools.

Boismier’s attorney did not immediately return a request for comment on April 10.

Walters celebrated the ruling as a victory for parental rights, students and educational integrity.

“We have sent a clear message that Oklahoma’s schools will remain free from political indoctrination and that our children deserve an education that is focused on core academic values, not the promotion of controversial ideologies,” Walters said in a statement.

In August 2022, Boismier covered the bookshelves in her English classroom with red paper on which she wrote, “books the state doesn’t want you to read.” She also posted a QR code linking to the Brooklyn Public Library’s BooksUnbanned initiative — an online collection of books available to young people across the country.

Boismier said she made the classroom display in protest of House Bill 1775, an Oklahoma law passed in 2021 to prohibit certain race and gender topics from being discussed in public school classrooms.

After two Oklahoma districts were penalized that year over HB 1775, the Norman district asked its teachers to remove books from their classrooms until they read each one or could cite two academic sources to verify the title was age-appropriate for students.

Boismier voluntarily resigned from Norman a few days after a student complained of the display. She said HB 1775 “created an impossible working environment for teachers and a devastating learning environment for students.”

She spoke to numerous media outlets about the controversy and wrote an opinion column in The Oklahoman, actions that Jones said contribute to her status as a public figure on the issue of HB 1775’s impact on education.

Some media outlets initially reported incorrectly that Boismier had been fired.

Walters at the time was running as a Republican candidate for state superintendent. He posted a statement on his social media accounts calling for Boismier’s teaching certification to be revoked and repeated the incorrect claim that Norman had fired her.

He later changed his public statement to say she resigned “rather than face removal.”

The Norman district has maintained that Boismier never violated state law and wasn’t disciplined.

“Perhaps a more responsible or reasonable public official would have — and as a matter of public trust, should have — done more to verify his claim before taking to Twitter,” Jones wrote in his decision. “But that failure, standing alone, does not warrant a jury trial.”

Walters contended the online library collection included books, like the graphic novel “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe, that contained sexual content. Boismier said she didn’t recommend students read any specific book from the catalogue.

Jones described pornographic material as difficult to define but he acknowledged certain imagery found in the graphic novel “arguably lends itself to such a characterization.”

“Where the line between what is and isn’t pornographic is so imprecise, the Court has trouble concluding that Walters’s characterization, however controversial, reflects an inference of known falsity or a reckless disregard for the truth,” the judge wrote.

Since the incident, Boismier moved to New York City to accept a position at the Brooklyn Public Library.

Walters and the Oklahoma State Board of Education formally revoked Boismier’s teaching certification in August, despite a separate judge finding the state agency failed to prove she deserved such a penalty.

Boismier sued the state board in Oklahoma County District Court to challenge the revocation. That case is still pending.

“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,” Her attorney, Brady Henderson, said at the time.

The state’s treatment of Boismier means “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,” Henderson said after the revocation.

Jones rejected the notion that Boismier or anyone else should be dissuaded from “speaking loudly and passionately about causes in which they believe.”

“She, like all others, is free to publicly disagree with this state’s politicians, subject to the protections and limits of the First Amendment,” Jones wrote. “But when one voluntarily steps out from the shadows of private life to speak on a matter of public controversy, the Supreme Court has made clear that the burden to prevail in a defamation action is a formidable one. And here, the Court concludes that Boismier has not met it.”

Oklahoma Voice (oklahomavoice.com) is an affiliate of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization, supported by grants and donations. Oklahoma Voice provides nonpartisan reporting, and retains full editorial independence.