The Oklahoma State Board of Education voted unanimously Aug. 22 to approve an order revoking the teaching certificate of former Norman High School teacher Summer Boismier. The contents of the order were revealed publicly in court documents on Thursday. (Photo by Brent Fuchs/For Oklahoma Voice)
OKLAHOMA CITY — After spending weeks outside of public view, an order revoking the teaching certificate of former Norman teacher Summer Boismier has been released after a federal judge demanded the document.
The revocation order became publicly viewable on Thursday when it was filed in a federal lawsuit challenging House Bill 1775, a controversial Oklahoma law that prohibits certain race and gender concepts from being taught in K-12 schools.
The order accuses Boismier of “circumventing” HB 1775 but not of teaching any of its banned concepts, despite state Superintendent Ryan Walters’ repeated claims that she broke the law. Boismier attracted national attention and Walters’ scrutiny in August 2022 when she posted a QR code in her classroom that linked to an online library containing banned books.
Walters and the Oklahoma State Board of Education allege she violated the teacher code of conduct when she posted the QR code because some of the books in the library catalog contain sexual content, according to the order.
Boismier’s attorney, Brady Henderson, said to expect a court challenge to the revocation.
“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,” Henderson said. “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.”
Boismier and Norman Public Schools have maintained that she never violated HB 1775. She resigned from Norman High School in protest of the law without the school district disciplining her.
HB 1775 prohibits K-12 schools from teaching that one race is superior to another, that a person is inherently racist or oppressive, and that someone bears responsibility or should feel guilt for past actions of people of their same race or sex, among other provisions.
An Oklahoma City federal judge blocked parts of HB 1775 from being enforced and let other sections stand in a June ruling. Plaintiffs in that case notified the judge of Boismier’s revocation order and warned him that the state might have relied on unenforceable parts of HB 1775.
The judge, Charles Goodwin, ordered Walters and the state Board of Education to give him the revocation order no later than Thursday for him to review. The revocation order states that nothing within it is meant to rely on sections of HB 1775 that Goodwin’s ruling impacted.
The state Board of Education, which Walters leads, voted unanimously on Aug. 22 to enact the order against Boismier’s teaching certificate. They took the vote without reading aloud what the order would do.
Walters told news reporters after the Aug. 22 meeting that the order officially revoked Boismier’s license to teach in Oklahoma.
“I said from the beginning, 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,” he said in the news conference.
In the weeks following the board’s vote, Walters’ administration did not immediately provide Boismier’s revocation order to members of the news media, including Oklahoma Voice. Instead the Oklahoma State Department of Education referred reporters to the agency’s notoriously lengthy open records request process.
Even Boismier’s attorney said he didn’t receive the order until it was filed Thursday in court. He said the Education Department told him it had tried unsuccessfully to mail him the document.
Education Department spokesperson Dan Isett said the agency never declined to provide the record and is facilitating the document to the public through open records request procedures. He said any characterization that the agency refused to turn it over is “warrantless and without merit.”
Boismier made national news in August 2022 when she covered the shelves of her classroom library with red butcher paper on which she wrote “books the state doesn’t want you to read.” She did so after the Norman district, fearing the grave risk of an HB 1775 complaint, required teachers to remove their classroom libraries until they could read every book or provide multiple sources to confirm each title was age appropriate.
Boismier’s classroom display also included a QR code link to the Brooklyn Public Library’s BooksUnbanned initiative, which offers online library cards to students across the country who might live in states where certain books are restricted.
Boismier has since moved to New York City to work at the Brooklyn Public Library.
Walters at the time accused the teacher of having a “liberal agenda” and called for her certification to be revoked.
The revocation order against her alleges she exposed students to inappropriate material because two books available in the catalog, “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe and “Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison, contain “sexually explicit language not appropriate for the students in Boismier’s classroom.”
The teacher said she never encouraged her students to read any particular book in the collection. Next to the QR code she wrote a sarcastic note that read, “Definitely don’t scan.”
“The overwhelming evidence proves Boismier’s intent was to entice her students to read the electronic books on the prohibited books list in defiance of HB 1775,” the order states.
An administrative law judge found the Education Department failed to prove that Boismier’s conduct justified revocation of her teaching certificate. The judge heard all evidence and testimony in the case during a June 2023 administrative hearing.
But, Walters and the state Board of Education later voted to reject the judge’s findings. Instead, they directed the board’s attorney to put together a list of facts and conclusions that served as the basis for the revocation order.
In a series of social media posts, Boismier described losing her teaching certificate as “a bit like losing a fundamental part of myself.” She said the revocation could prevent her from becoming a certified teacher in other states.
Students suffer an even greater loss, she said, when they are barred from reading books that reflect their lives and experiences, especially those who are LGBTQ+ or people of color.
“I will not apologize for sharing publicly available information about library access with my students,” she wrote on social media on Aug. 22. “My livelihood will never be as important as someone’s life or right to read what they want. I fully intend to fight this revocation and the law that enables it: HB 1775.”
DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
