On Tuesday, Ryan Walters, Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction, announced the creation of an Office of Religious Freedom and Patriotism at the Oklahoma Department of Education. Billed as a way to protect religious freedom, this office will impose Orwellian-like practices that trample on individual choice and religious freedom.

The taxpayer-funded office will be tasked with promoting religious freedom and patriotism in Oklahoma by protecting “parents, teachers and students’ ability to practice their religion freely in all aspects” and will also “oversee the investigation of abuses of freedom individual religious or manifestations of patriotism”, according to s press release from Walters.

The Oklahoma Department of Education has a history of ignoring the separation of church and state in public schools. Last year, a high school classroom in Skiatook removed a prominent display of John 3:16 after the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF)—an organization that advocates for atheists, agnostics, and nontheists—filed a complaint on behalf of community members.

In July, Walters disclosure guidance on how to teach the Bible in Oklahoma schools after he did orderly the inclusion of the Bible in history programs even a month before. “Every teacher, every classroom in the state will have a Bible in the classroom and teach from the Bible in the classroom,” Walters said. he stated in June.

By September, during an Oklahoma State Board of Education meeting, Walters did REQUESTED a total of $6 million to purchase the 55,000 Bibles needed by Oklahoma schools. At the time, the only biblical texts Walters encountered criteria were King James Version Bibles that included the Pledge of Allegiance, the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the US Bill of Rights. The Bible was also required “to be bound in leather or leather-like material.”

Conformable Oklahoma Watchonly two Bibles meet the original requirements of the Oklahoma Department of Education, both of which were approved by the Trump family and one of which Donald Trump received compensation for his approval.

Until October, thanks to a wave of criticism, new guidelines were issued that relaxed the narrow requirements and allowed copies of the American founding documents to be provided separately from the Bible.

Walters called public schools “ground zero for the erosion of religious freedom in our country,” and claims that this “correlates directly to declining academic achievement in our public schools.”

In the announcement, Walters also revealed that The Office of Religious Liberty and Patriotism was designed to align with “Freedom to pray“initiative and to ensure that “both student and teacher rights to prayer are protected and upheld.”

Superintendent Walters’ stated goal of promoting religious freedom is contrary to the Bible’s mandate in public schools. Rather than promoting religious freedom, as the Office for Religious Freedom and Patriotism contends, it will likely promote more religious interference and state approval of certain religious expressions.