Articles
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Education
Local voters can choose president but not school board?
As Oklahoma state lawmakers discuss legislation to shift school-board elections to November general-election ballots, opponents have raised an unconventional argument: while local voters may be qualified to cast a vote for president of the United States, they are not qualified to select school-board members in their own community.Ray Carter | April 4, 2024
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Education
Parents rally for school-board election change
Voter turnout in this week’s local school board elections was (again) so low as to almost defy belief. Many Oklahomans are ready to move these elections to November.Ray Carter | April 3, 2024
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Education
Oklahoma senators target special-needs discrimination
Parents of special-needs students in districts such as Yukon, Muskogee, Millwood, Medford, Pawnee, and Wynona report satisfaction with their involvement in the process—unlike districts such as Deer Creek, Edmond, Piedmont, Jenks, Lawton, Norman, and Moore.Ray Carter | April 2, 2024
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Education, Culture & the Family
Queer activist calls for keeping Oklahoma parents in the dark about child’s mental health
A left-wing activist in Oklahoma is urging state officials to no longer require teachers to notify parents of information related to their child’s mental health.Ray Carter | March 28, 2024
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Higher Education
‘How to Blow Up a Pipeline’ is required reading in OU class
The controversial book “How to Blow Up a Pipeline,” which encourages environmental activists to engage in acts of violent sabotage, is one of the required readings in an OU course this semester.Ray Carter | March 28, 2024
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Education
Public schools serve all children? Oklahoma parents find that’s not so
Horror stories abound of Oklahoma public school employees discriminating against special-needs students. Adding insult to injury, parents see their tax dollars used to hire lobbyists to oppose them.Ray Carter | March 25, 2024
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Culture & the Family
Despite lack of evidence, 2STGNC+ activists call for prosecutions
The death of Dagny Benedict, a 16-year-old Owasso girl who identified as “nonbinary,” was ruled a suicide and found to be unrelated to a school fight the preceding day. But transgender activists insist that other students involved in the fight, which was instigated by Benedict, should be prosecuted anyway.Ray Carter | March 22, 2024
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Culture & the Family
Effort to bar child access to porn overcomes critic pushback
Oklahoma could soon join the list of states with age-verification laws for porn content, despite the objections of some lawmakers who raise First Amendment concerns and worry that the bill could “make it harder for adults to access adult content.”Ray Carter | March 21, 2024
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Higher Education
OU, state mental-health agency tout ‘pregnant people’
Oklahoma’s “mental health” department went to great lengths to avoid referencing the existence of “women” or “mothers”—instead touting “pregnant people,” “individuals who are pregnant,” and “pregnant and parenting people.”Ray Carter | March 20, 2024
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Judicial Reform
‘It’s not the most transparent process’: McCall notes problems with JNC
Members of the Oklahoma Senate have approved legislation that would allow voters to reform Oklahoma’s judicial-selection process. The proposed state constitutional amendment would eliminate the secretive Judicial Nominating Commission (JNC) and instead adopt the model established in the U.S. Constitution that allows the executive to nominate any qualified person to serve as judge, subject to legislative approval.Ray Carter | March 19, 2024