Oklahoma authorities investigate reports of explicit images on state education chief's TV

Winnipeg Free Press

4 days ago

An Oklahoma sheriff's office Monday opened an investigation over reports that images of nude women were displayed on the state's school superintendent office television during a meeting with education board members.
Top Oklahoma lawmakers have sought answers over accounts given by two State Board of Education members, who said they saw the images during a meeting in Ryan Walters 's office Thursday. Another board member, Chris Van Denhende, said he was not in a position to see the television but that 'something was on the screen that should not have been,' based on Walters' reaction.
The investigation is in the early stages, said Aaron Brilbeck, a spokesperson for the Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office. He said it was not clear if any laws were violated.
Walters, a Republican, has spent much of his first term in office lauding President Donald Trump, feuding with teachers unions and local school superintendents, and trying to end what he describes as 'wokeness' in public schools.
Brilbeck said the sheriff's office was investigating at the request of the state's Office of Management and Enterprise Services, which handles technology, human resources and property management issues for state government.
Education board members Becky Carson and Ryan Deatherage told the online news outlet NonDoc that they saw a video featuring naked women in Walters' office during the executive session. They said that they were the only people seated in places where they could see the screen.
Carson said that when she asked Walters to turn it off he expressed confusion before doing so.
Walters said in a post on the social platform X on Sunday that 'any suggestion that a device of mine was used to stream inappropriate content on the television set is categorically false.'
'I have no knowledge of what was on the TV screen during the alleged incident, and there is absolutely no truth to any implication of wrongdoing,' he wrote.
Walters' office did not immediately reply to a request by The Associated Press for comment about the investigation on Monday.
Van Denhende told the AP that he's fine with the sheriff's department investigating, though 'I'm not certain if it is a violation of law or state policy.'
Senate Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton, a Republican, in a news release on Friday said it was 'a bizarre and troubling situation,' and that 'the accounts made public by board members paint a strange, unsettling scene that demands clarity and transparency.'
State Sen. Adam Pugh, a Republican who is the Senate education chairman, said in the news release that the reports from the meeting 'raise a number of questions.'
Carson nor Deatherage immediately replied Monday to a request for comment from the AP.