LGBTQ+ advocacy group opens website, begins campaign to remove Ryan Walters from office

An advocacy group known as the Human Rights Campaign has begun a campaign it's calling "Remove Ryan Walters," an effort it said will involve the creation of a website opposing the state schools superintendent from office, as well as a plan for action that will include protests at the Capitol next week.

The Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign (HRC) bills itself as the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization. It said Thursday in a news release the campaign’s goal is to hold Walters “accountable for his failed leadership and dangerous rhetoric and policies that have left Oklahoma’s 2SLGBTQI students feeling unsafe in the state’s schools.”

The campaign comes in the wake of the death of Owasso High School student Nex Benedict in February, one day after an altercation with other students inside a school bathroom. The circumstances surrounding the 16-year-old’s death have drawn nationwide scrutiny, particularly over the measures schools take to keep transgender children safe. Nex, who was of Choctaw heritage, used the pronouns they, them, he and him, and their gender identity did not align with their gender assigned at birth.

A summary autopsy report concluded Nex died by suicide. The U.S. Department of Education has launched a civil rights investigation into whether Owasso Public Schools administrators adequately responded to reports of sex-based bullying during the current school year.

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Matt Langston, Walters’ top advisor, dismissed the HRC campaign: “Fake controversy, fake journalism, and fake polls only confirm the need for common sense to return to education,” he said.

After winning a statewide election, Walters began serving as state superintendent of public instruction in January 2023. To remove him from office, the state House of Representatives would have to impeach Walters, and the state Senate then would have to sit as a jury, with a two-thirds vote of the Senate required for removal.

A spokesman for Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat, R-Oklahoma City, declined comment, noting any such removal procedure would need to originate in the House. A spokesman for House Speaker Charles McCall, R-Atoka, did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Group releases poll that it says shows Ryan Walters is underwater with Oklahoma voters

As part of the campaign, HRC released a poll from Change Research, a polling firm based in the San Francisco area that conducts its polls online. According to the poll monitoring website fivethirtyeight.com, Change Research received 1.4 stars out of a possible three and ranked 195th out of 277 groups that received a rating in the website’s pollster ratings.

HRC said Change Research polled 665 likely general election voters in Oklahoma, 58% of whom identified as Republican. HRC said the polling found a majority (55%) of likely 2024 Oklahoma voters disapprove of the job Walters is doing as state superintendent, including 42% who strongly disapprove, compared to just 29% of Oklahomans who approve. HRC said 52% of those polled want the state Legislature to impeach and remove Walters and another 11% believe he should be investigated.

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HRC said the polling showed Walters is especially unpopular among parents/guardians of K-12 public school students, with 58% wanting Walters impeached and removed, and 75% saying he is not a good role model for Oklahoma's students.

The campaign includes a website, RemoveWalters.com, that includes reports critical of the superintendent and a place to sign an online petition calling for his removal. HRC also produced a digital ad and said it plans a “week of action” next week against Walters. HRC said its actions will take place at the state Capitol – centered around a lobbying day by the Oklahoma-based LGBTQ+ group Freedom Oklahoma – as well as at next Thursday’s monthly state Board of Education meeting. HRC said more in-person actions were being planned for coming weeks, as well as more paid ads, videos, reports and social media campaigns.

"Ryan Walters is a cruel and self-serving politician who, our polling shows, has lost the trust of Oklahomans,” HRC President Kelley Robinson said in a statement. “This should come as no surprise – his tenure reeks of anti-LGBTQ+ bullying, harassment and corruption. His record betrays the very essence of education. He has to go. Working in tandem with our partners on the ground who live through Walters’ dangerous tenure each and every day, HRC will hold Walters accountable for his actions and ensure all Oklahomans know how he is failing them and their children. Oklahomans deserve so much better than Ryan Walters.”

HRC’s call for Walters to be removed is the second such effort in less than a month. In late February, more than 350 organizations, from both within and outside Oklahoma, sent a letter to the state Legislature asking for Walters’ removal. The letter was posted on the website of GLAAD, which describes itself as a group that “works to ensure that the news media is accurately and fairly representing LGBTQ people in its reporting. It was organized by Freedom Oklahoma.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Human Rights Campaign calls for Ryan Walters' removal with site, protests