In the coming school year, educators in Oklahoma’s public schools will be required to teach students that widespread election discrepancies and fraud plagued the U.S. election in 2020. The new educational requirement is the result of a mandate from Oklahoma state school superintendent Ryan Walters.

A long-time ally of Donald Trump, Walters supported Trump’s claims that election fraud in 2020 prevented him from retaining the White House. In that election, Trump faced Joe Biden, who won the election and served a four-year term as U.S. president.

Although Trump insisted there was fraud, numerous investigations found that the 2020 election was legitimate and fair. Multiple court rulings indicated that claims of widespread fraud were “totally without merit,” per Truthout, an American-based non-profit news organization.

Nonetheless, the state school superintendent recently said that Oklahoma is moving ahead with the “most unapologetically conservative, pro-American social studies standards in the nation.”

His latest mandate on the 2020 election has stirred controversy, but controversy isn’t new to Walters. He has made other controversial changes to Oklahoma’s 2025-2026 school curriculum, such as requirements that educators ensure their students “can identify the source of the COVID-19 pandemic from a Chinese lab” and “explain the effects of the Trump tax cuts, child tax credit (and) border enforcement efforts.”

Last year, Walters directed public school teachers in grades five through twelve to include the Bible in their lessons. That change sparked resistance from Oklahoma school districts and criticism from people who pointed out the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom.

Walters also sparked controversy when he promoted the so-called Trump Bible, which contains the Pledge of Allegiance and the Bill of Rights, as well as the Old and New Testaments. In addition, he supports an effort to create America’s first public religious charter school.

The state school superintendent’s curriculum changes for the coming school year have drawn criticism from some Oklahoma Republicans, including the governor and legislative leaders. Several have said a number of changes to the curriculum were made only a few hours before the state school board voted on them earlier this year. They expressed concern about the last-minute nature of the proposals.

The Oklahoma legislature considered a resolution to reject curriculum changes related to the 2020 election, but it died because of a lack of Republican support.

“Part of that hesitation probably stemmed from a flurry of last-minute opposition organized by pro-Trump conservative groups,” according to The Guardian, an international newspaper based in Great Britain.

Conservative groups had threatened to oppose legislators who voted against Walters’ changes. Among them was Moms for Liberty, which told legislators not to side with the liberal media and make backroom deals with Democrats to block conservative reform, (or) you will be next.”

By that, Moms for Liberty meant that legislators who sided with Democrats on these changes would be the next ones to lose their legislative seats.

A group of educators and parents has challenged Oklahoma’s new public school curriculum in court. They argue that the new standards were not properly reviewed and “represent a distorted view of social studies that intentionally favors an outdated and blatantly biased perspective.” The lawsuit asks a judge to reject the standards.

But Walters has argued, “We have education bureaucrats that are left-wing, elitist, that think they know best for families, and they have become too radicalized that our families are going: ‘What is going on here?'”

Oklahoma’s social studies curriculum will change significantly. Previously, it said students would “examine issues related to the election of 2020 and its outcome.” The revised curriculum instructs students to do the following:

“Identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results by looking at graphs and other information, including the sudden halting of ballot counting in select cities in key battleground states, the security risks of mail-in balloting, sudden batch dumps, an unforeseen record number of voters, and the unprecedented contradiction of ‘bellwether county’ trends.'”

A group of parents, educators and other Oklahoma school officials developed the new social studies curriculum, and Walters brought together a committee of analysts from inside and outside the state to make revisions. The committee included Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation and a key figure in Project 2025.

The social studies curriculum has been criticized as “part of the latest Republican push in red states to promote ideologies sympathetic to Donald Trump,” according to The Guardian, an international newspaper based in Great Britain.

Some Oklahoma teachers are angry about Walters’ latest mandate, while others say teachers can instruct students about the 2020 election without misinforming them.

According to The Guardian, Walters “has spent much of his first term in office not only lauding Trump but also feuding with teachers’ unions and local school superintendents.”

According to several news reports, the curriculum changes are expected to cost Oklahoma taxpayers approximately $33 million for new textbooks and other educational materials.