Standing Up to the Biden Administration with Ryan Walters
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
203.84343
Summary
In this episode of the Gains for Girls Podcast, I interview the current Superintendent of Public Education in Oklahoma, Ryan Walters. He is the first elected official in the state who said he would not comply with the biden administration's illegal administrative rewrite of Title 9.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
hey everybody welcome back to the gains for girls podcast today's guest is ryan walters uh he is
00:00:13.100
the oklahoma superintendent of public education if his name sounds familiar that's because you've
00:00:19.040
probably heard of him uh he has been just incredible he has been a vocal critic of
00:00:23.760
uh critical race theory he's been a vocal critic of gender ideology in schools of the
00:00:29.500
pornographic books in schools of teacher unions in oklahoma um i would describe him as oklahoma's top
00:00:36.460
and really that one of the nation's top culture warriors uh one thing that he is doing right now
00:00:42.300
which shows his tenacity and grit he's suing the biden administration and the department of education
00:00:48.500
uh really wonderful things he is also the first person uh the first elected official who said he
00:00:53.940
will not comply oklahoma will not comply to joe biden's illegal administrative rewrite of title
00:01:00.480
nine uh that right there should tell you everything about his leadership uh and unwillingness to comply
00:01:07.540
really wonderful stuff so check out the interview here with ryan walters i am so glad you're able to
00:01:14.580
join the gains for girls podcast uh before we get into anything i wanted to give you the opportunity
00:01:19.180
to tell us a little bit about yourself and what's your role as superintendent of public schools in
00:01:25.100
oklahoma looks like well thank you so much for having me today riley um you know hey my daughters
00:01:31.340
are gonna be so thrilled i'm on the show today uh you know i am a former history teacher i taught high
00:01:37.320
school history i was a tennis coach and a basketball coach um i ran for this position to be the superintendent
00:01:42.780
of state of the state of oklahoma so i oversee all of our schools so the enforcement of our rules laws
00:01:48.520
of our school districts are uh part of my power here in the state you know i ran for this office
00:01:54.800
because i heard from parents that were so frustrated right they were so frustrated that we were in a
00:01:59.640
conservative state we didn't have school choice we had boys playing girls sports we had critical race
00:02:05.060
theory and dei in our school so i ran for this office i was able to win despite the best efforts of
00:02:09.920
the teachers unions and now it's uh you know it's been full steam ahead with a blueprint for states on
00:02:15.480
here's how you do conservative reform and education we have been very proud of our track record we're
00:02:20.640
very proud of our successes and so here in oklahoma you know we're going to keep fighting for parents
00:02:24.920
over bureaucrats we're going to keep putting parents in charge and running the teachers unions out of our
00:02:29.480
schools and again here we still have common sense like most of the country does uh to understand that
00:02:34.480
boys are boys girls are girls and we're not going to allow a woke agenda to overtake our our classrooms
00:02:39.800
thank goodness for it uh speaking of of all of the boys are boys girls are girls uh i was so
00:02:49.000
impressed and grateful i saw a video of you of course you came out strong against the biden
00:02:55.960
administration's rewrite of title nine you were really the first person to basically reject these
00:03:03.000
guidelines and these implications of this proposal you vowed that and after that after your leadership we saw
00:03:09.800
other governors we saw governor abbott uh governor sarah huckabee sanders other elected officials
00:03:14.280
uh basically pledge the same willingness to not comply uh and so what led you to make that statement
00:03:22.840
and ultimately take that action well you know ultimately when we looked at it in real time um you
00:03:28.920
know we we had an understanding that was really be a three-pronged approach number one we wanted to give
00:03:34.360
districts clarity right from the outset you don't obey this this edict from the biden administration
00:03:39.800
this is this is um unlawful it goes against common sense and so the first thing that we did immediately
00:03:46.360
was respond and had talked about it in our board meeting no district will comply so we sent an email
00:03:52.920
out every district said this is direct guidance from the state department of education not to comply
00:03:57.240
with the biden administration so again then we had superintendents reaching out to us going thank
00:04:01.080
you you know we were worried don't could the federal government sue us directly could they come after
00:04:05.240
us well we're standing in between joe biden's radical regime and our local schools so they were very
00:04:11.080
thankful that we gave them legal guidance a legal memo right from the outset that said oklahoma will not
00:04:16.200
comply and districts you will not comply with this edict number two we were the first state department
00:04:21.880
and we're still the only one the state department of education we sued the biden administration
00:04:26.200
so we sued them directly i know other states have sued but it was so important for us to sue
00:04:31.480
as a department of education because there's really two things here number one riley and i know you know
00:04:37.160
this they broke their own rules to pass this title nine rewrite so i mean first of all it's just amazing
00:04:43.800
what democrats are willing to do to push this woke agenda onto our kids they break their own rules
00:04:49.720
inside their agency on rulemaking so they broke their own rules to do it number one number two we we point to
00:04:55.000
the fact that they don't have the legal authority to rewrite title nine in the way that they did so
00:05:00.360
we we were the first state department of education to sue them on that front and then third you know
00:05:04.680
something that i i've been talking about a lot and boy i've heard you out there talking about it
00:05:08.920
heard president trump has made this campaign promise which i believe is so important we've got
00:05:14.120
to abolish the department of education and that's one of the things we've tried to be very vocal about
00:05:17.960
we don't need a department of education this is what they do they come in and they try to socially
00:05:22.680
engineer our states and our schools they try to weaponize the federal government's power against
00:05:27.640
parents and it's time to do away with it once and for all and that's where you know we've been very
00:05:31.400
clear here hey we need to have president trump back in the white house to get that done so that we can
00:05:36.520
finally give education back to the states where it belongs and then the states should do like we do
00:05:41.080
here in oklahoma and let's give all the education power back to the parents where god gave that power
00:05:46.440
originally amazing yeah you mentioned uh the biden administration breaking their own law which is
00:05:53.000
almost comical given the irony considering everything going on uh the travesty that has befallen our
00:06:01.880
justice system recently with president trump now you've got joe biden tweeting no one is above the law
00:06:08.280
i guess if by no one he means his political opponents because you're right whether it's it's this
00:06:13.960
issue whether it's uh the student debt relief even thinking he's above the highest courts the supreme
00:06:19.640
courts and and ultimately they ruled that this exceeded his authority but to which he he blatantly
00:06:25.560
said he did not care so uh the irony is is almost comical and yeah this this i guess is kind of just
00:06:31.240
a question out of ignorance uh if the department of education at the federal level were to be abolished
00:06:38.280
i mean would this threaten like your position at a state level yeah no great question and so
00:06:43.720
really when you if you abolish the federal department of education what you would do
00:06:48.360
is then any kind of funding that you would want to go to schools that needs to go directly to parents
00:06:52.680
that don't have it go through an apparatus that then can put all these requirements on there
00:06:57.000
the parents should really have the education funding and let them take it to a private school
00:07:00.520
home school charter school however they wish and let states determine how to oversee their schools so
00:07:05.880
again you know a position like mine look i i love the fact i'm elected by the people i'm
00:07:10.040
i'm answerable to the people of oklahoma so you know parents reach out to us directly we
00:07:14.200
have hotlines for parents who feel like their kids are not being uh their parents rights are being uh
00:07:19.480
you know uh stepped over or that if they feel like there is a boy in a girl's sport or if they
00:07:24.040
see that crt is being pushed on their kids or they see their kids are being mistreated in a school and
00:07:28.680
being indoctrinated they can reach out directly to our agency and we can go in there and make sure that
00:07:33.080
our schools are obeying the law so we've we've gone into certain districts and said listen we found
00:07:37.800
you breaking state law so we're going to threaten your accreditation teachers and administrators if
00:07:42.840
you say we're going to blatantly disregard the law and do illegal activity with kids we're going to take
00:07:47.640
your license away from you we're not going to allow that type of behavior so it really empowers states
00:07:53.160
to give power back to families but also to figure out their own way to make sure that their their
00:07:57.720
schools are following the law the federal government all they've continued to do and i want to take even one
00:08:02.120
step back riley if i can please the federal department of education remember the common core
00:08:07.640
fight when that when the federal department of education decided that they knew a better way to
00:08:11.720
do math and it was this super convoluted everyone hated it uh that came from the federal department
00:08:17.080
of education critical race theory came from the federal department of education dei came from the
00:08:22.040
federal department of education and so you continue to see this well you know how do we get this into
00:08:27.400
schools well let's use the federal government not only the bureaucracy to enforce it
00:08:32.040
but also federal funds and put all these strings attached to them and then threaten the states to
00:08:37.400
jerk those funds back if they don't abide by our edicts and so it's a very simple process to to abolish
00:08:43.400
that department it's also you've got the agency and then you have the local implementation of that
00:08:49.480
agency which is the teachers unions so the the they work together remember when they shut down schools
00:08:55.480
it was absolutely a coordinated effort we saw that when their emails were leaked out
00:08:59.160
um that the teachers unions had the department of education help advocate to shut down schools
00:09:05.240
across the country that's where they tried to work they tried to work through that bureaucracy
00:09:08.680
and again without president trump in the white house um you're going to continue to see that agency run
00:09:12.840
amok yeah no that makes sense thank you for that explanation again that was pretty solely out of out of
00:09:19.240
ignorance there um but there's no no doubt that your job has been tough uh i've seen videos of you
00:09:26.680
getting protested people at at the state house the state capitol uh with signs and flags and of course
00:09:33.640
hurling the most obscene heinous profane things your way uh your family's way even uh we saw what happened
00:09:43.240
at an oklahoma public school uh gained garnered national attention surrounding next benedict this
00:09:49.960
is of course a non-binary i believe a 10th grader uh who tragically committed suicide uh this is
00:09:56.280
something that you got blamed for this is something that i got blamed for anyone who opposes or even
00:10:02.200
dares to question the gender ideology movement got blamed for this so i wanted to get your take you know
00:10:09.000
in your opinion what is the real root of the problem here you know it's as you know that one
00:10:15.640
was one of the more sickening things um that i've dealt with as the state superintendent here is yep i i
00:10:21.480
remember you know we had the suicide it's always just such a tragedy when you lose a child here in our
00:10:27.080
schools it was a tragedy about a week had gone by uh we'd offer school you know counselors to go to the
00:10:32.520
school help out help all the students the families and then we saw some some radical left-wing
00:10:38.040
blogger come out and say well actually you know why this student committed suicide because
00:10:43.160
of conservatives because of conservatives in the state they name me they name you
00:10:47.880
um and they start ratcheting up this is because of conservatives banning boys in the girls bathrooms
00:10:53.720
um all of these type of things they lie about a fight that happened in the school claim that
00:10:58.040
it happened in a certain way that the that the kid was the next benedict was killed in the bathroom
00:11:02.760
well that's not what happened at all um so they start this lie out and they start trying to blame
00:11:07.800
all of us and we're sitting here you know you know we see the suicide notes we see what nexon said we
00:11:13.160
see the issue and it had nothing to do with anything they're talking about you know um the child
00:11:18.360
struggled i had a real struggle their whole life um and it was not it was dealing with the family it
00:11:23.960
was dealing with accusations around um issues with the father um and so you had all this and you're
00:11:28.920
going these left-wing fanatics could care less about the kid they could care less about how the
00:11:33.640
child died they could care less about the actual causes of it they just want to blame conservatives
00:11:38.680
it was a pure political um attack they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in our state
00:11:45.000
the um i'm trying to remember the name of the group now it's an lgbtq plus group to have ads
00:11:51.960
targeting me saying i killed this student in our state but you see how radical these groups are to fight
00:11:57.400
for their gender ideology and to push it on kids but they could care less about the death of a child
00:12:02.040
they wanted to make it a political talking point rather than actually trying to understand what
00:12:05.880
happened there and again it's sick but it's a it's a great example of what we see in the country
00:12:11.000
today from the radical left they will do anything to push their agenda they will imprison president
00:12:16.840
trump they will lie about the death of a child they will i've seen that the physical attacks on you
00:12:21.720
riley it's just sickening to watch them try to bully and intimidate you the way that they do
00:12:26.040
but the left will go to there's no bounds to which they won't go to get their way and this is why
00:12:32.040
this election is so important this fall but every we've got to have conservatives mobilize we've got
00:12:37.320
to push back on this because if you don't if you back down to a woke mob they just get more and more
00:12:42.520
violent more and more unruly we have to win this war no doubt about that and yeah you're right it's not just
00:12:48.520
this topic it is any topic it's uh it's covid we saw the fauci hearing uh recently it's the border
00:12:56.200
stuff it's every topic they will find a way to vilify their political opponents uh which is is sad
00:13:06.760
you know as young people watching this country uh be polarized in the way that it is uh it's incredibly
00:13:14.760
disheartening uh but earlier this year uh you brought on kaya kaya rychik is one of she's of
00:13:21.720
course the creator of lives of tick tock which does a perfect job and i mean really just holding up a
00:13:29.560
mirror to the insanity of the left she does nothing else other than amplify their own words their own
00:13:36.680
intersectional language and actions you both are are constantly accused of bomb threats and different
00:13:43.640
things kaya quite literally i mean like hundreds and hundreds of them all across the nation and so
00:13:49.480
i wanted to ask you i think this is a wonderful move uh given her platform uh given the impact that
00:13:55.320
she is able to have uh but i wanted to ask you you know what led you to do this and do you have any
00:14:02.440
regrets given the backlash that i i'm it's certain that you face for doing this well you know honestly and
00:14:09.160
um i know you've seen this too the more the left reacts and the backlash it more tells me that i'm
00:14:15.880
over the target and i made the right move actually so uh the way that they responded to that just was
00:14:20.520
a better even a better indicator that was the right thing to do but but kaya had been helping me for i
00:14:25.720
think nearly a year before the appointment uh she would send me information on teachers and again the
00:14:31.000
brilliance of her platform to go this is the video of them saying this not me saying it about them
00:14:36.360
them them saying it themselves and we were able to take teacher certificates get them out of the
00:14:41.160
classrooms that were pushing um you know one of them was pushing anarchist uh propaganda on kids
00:14:47.400
we had several grooming uh and sexual assaults um that she was able to find for us so we were very very
00:14:54.200
enthusiastically excited to bring her on board to help us continue to uncover indoctrination in the
00:14:59.960
classroom uh radical leftist pushing an agenda on our kids and so yeah you know the left the teachers
00:15:05.720
union boy they lost it riley i mean the uh we had her uh you know do a video announcement when we
00:15:11.080
brought her on board and oh my goodness they were losing their mind at the board meeting they were
00:15:14.920
out protesting and and we keep coming back to we want to be the most transparent state in the country
00:15:21.720
we've got a lady here who has done more to uncover what's going on in the classroom than anybody else in
00:15:27.560
the country of course we would be thrilled to have her on board to have her helping us continue to
00:15:33.240
uncover what's going on in the classrooms and she's just been tremendous she's been a tremendous
00:15:37.400
partner there and we couldn't be more proud of that partnership with her yeah you guys have had
00:15:43.000
um some real success which is a lot more than what other states can say uh but yeah to your point she's
00:15:49.800
been successful and in states across the country really um speaking of you know oklahoma you you
00:15:56.360
mentioned transparency here all the time i live in a red state i'm from tennessee i'm very blessed to be
00:16:03.000
from tennessee uh where things aren't as bad as other states or at least so people think um you know
00:16:11.480
people think a lot of this stuff is happening in california or new york or uh michigan or maine or
00:16:18.360
these states that that tend to be pretty progressive uh but in your experience you know i i wanted to kind of
00:16:25.480
of get your your perspective i think there's a lot of complacency from people in red states uh
00:16:31.960
complacent complacency that's ultimately led us to where we are now scratching our heads saying you know
00:16:37.720
how how have we reached the point where people really think and it's being implemented that boys
00:16:43.960
can be girls and girls can be boys and so do you think states like oklahoma like tennessee like florida
00:16:51.080
uh are susceptible to this madness um at the same rate or even sometimes i would argue at a higher
00:16:59.160
rate than a lot of these blue states right look i couldn't agree more you know i just want to tell
00:17:05.400
your audience i know that they see all that you're doing on the national level and states across the
00:17:09.240
country here in oklahoma we would not have had our save women sports act if it wasn't for you if you
00:17:14.120
wouldn't have come here and really used your platform to help us get that across the finish line i don't
00:17:18.840
think it would have happened and so you see even in a red state every one of the oklahoma's counties
00:17:24.040
voted for president trump in the last two elections every one of our counties did and yet we have had
00:17:29.000
trouble getting school choice across the finish line we finally did that we've had issues banning
00:17:34.040
several of the critical race theory several of these elements in our classrooms and what you see here
00:17:38.840
is as what i have encountered is in a red state what your teachers unions do is they go in and they
00:17:45.000
try to buy people out from the republican party hey they know that the democrats probably aren't going to
00:17:48.600
have near as much sway obviously in a red state so we're going to go buy off a few influential
00:17:53.000
republicans and we're going to block reforms we're going to take over the state department of education
00:17:58.120
riley when i came on board i i had to get 130 uh bureaucrats out of this agency that were complete
00:18:04.680
leftists that were here to undermine the work we were doing so we had to get 130 folks out of here
00:18:09.240
to keep the work going forward and to make sure that what we're doing is answering the parents first
00:18:13.720
and not just be you know not being a rubber stamp for teachers unions but in red states what you see
00:18:18.440
is they take over the state departments of education they take over all these boards and
00:18:22.760
commissions and then they buy off republicans in influential places and so they do a lot of these
00:18:27.720
things where they're half measures they don't implement law the way that they should i mean that's
00:18:32.600
kind of you know george soros started doing this years ago he was getting involved in all these local
00:18:38.280
da races and school board races and i remember you know years ago people were going what's he doing
00:18:43.240
well now it's very obvious right you can pass whatever law you want but if you control the da's
00:18:48.280
they're gonna they're not going to enforce a law they don't like or they're going to weaponize their
00:18:52.120
offices against conservatives if you have all the local school boards they can sit here and pull a
00:18:57.320
school district all the way to the left and the community cannot even know you know they don't even
00:19:00.920
know what happens and a few years go by and they've got a bunch of radical leftists in their school
00:19:04.920
district so it's so important that red states lead on these issues so i'm under attack right
00:19:09.960
now riley i've got i've got a republican here in the state of oklahoma that's attacking me and trying
00:19:14.680
to make sure my agency can't tell the public what's going on in the schools he didn't like when i was
00:19:19.800
showing parents the pornography that we found in school so now he's trying to ban me from being able
00:19:24.440
to talk about these things publicly a republican um so you know it is amazing to see that type
00:19:30.840
of activity in red states but this is where we've got to play offense we should be um very aggressive
00:19:36.200
in our agenda we should move the ball forward because the conservative agenda is what's best
00:19:40.440
for kids is what's best for families is what's best for communities because we understand the
00:19:45.320
more that we can strengthen the family unit the more that we can protect that the more that we can
00:19:49.960
put mom and dad in charge of their kids and their kids education the better off they'll be the more we
00:19:55.240
protect their religious liberties so they can talk about their faith with their kid and express their
00:19:59.400
religious beliefs these are things that we know they're universal they stand the test of time
00:20:04.200
they lead to a huge positive impact for communities and it's a conservative agenda
00:20:10.120
that we shouldn't be compromising on we should be very aggressive on moving the ball forward
00:20:13.960
a hundred percent yeah uh both i think the issues that that you and i fight for uh they shouldn't be
00:20:20.920
partisan issues um this isn't something that i believe only conservatives should be fighting for
00:20:26.760
as you said it really is universal uh who wouldn't want parental rights uh who wouldn't want the
00:20:33.400
safeguarding of children or in the case of a lot of these you know issues in sports women's rights who
00:20:39.000
wouldn't want those things uh but what i have noticed is that republicans or at least people with
00:20:44.600
an r by their name uh can be our own worst enemies uh which is a sad reality um but nonetheless you
00:20:53.320
continue you continue to fight you continue to push uh i would argue pretty fearlessly um and if not
00:21:00.360
fearless certainly courageously and so you know why why do you continue despite the constant backlash
00:21:08.920
and the threats that you face and again that your family faces you know riley um it was it meant a lot to
00:21:16.600
me when um when you were when you were here we signed our save women's sports bill you know i i brought
00:21:22.280
my daughters with me violet and ella who by the way are going to be so thrilled that i'm on the show
00:21:26.040
today that they love you they are huge fans of the work you're doing um and uh you know i i look at
00:21:31.400
them that they're both tennis players um uh they're young 10 and 6 so you know they're young but but
00:21:37.080
we've got them in in these tennis uh lessons and uh you know they're working hard you know they they
00:21:42.120
they want to be good tennis players and you know you think about what the left would do to them if
00:21:47.880
they had their way you know first of all they would tell them that you know you might not be girls you
00:21:51.880
might be boys and confuse them in this way that could send their life on a terrible terrible path
00:21:57.800
number two you look at it and say so the left is willing to allow these girls to work hard their
00:22:03.480
whole life to be really good at a sport all the dedication all those life lessons that come from
00:22:08.440
athletic activities to show up at the state tournament have a boy say well today i think
00:22:13.240
i'm a girl you know i wasn't gonna do very well in the boys event but if i if i switch genders here
00:22:17.480
you know i might have a chance and jump in there and beat them at the at the state tennis tournament
00:22:22.520
you know how do you live in a society where you allow that to happen you know when you're a dad when
00:22:26.600
you're a mom and you see your kids going through this you know you got to fight for them you have to
00:22:30.440
fight for this next generation and for far too long you know adults have allowed this to happen to
00:22:35.240
our kids and now we're turning around and going we've allowed the left to control our
00:22:38.280
schools our education system it's not right you know we should be empowering our kids with a
00:22:44.440
good education we should be standing for common sense we should be the great country that we were
00:22:50.120
where we were able to tell kids hey you as an individual hey if you if you you know have keep
00:22:55.880
good faith you know you listen to what's right listen to god you listen to what's right you dedicate
00:23:00.840
yourself to something you work hard you try to do the right thing look look life life can be
00:23:06.040
incredible for you you can have such a positive influence on the world around you people around
00:23:10.200
you you have a great family um you know these are the type of things you want kids to hear about
00:23:15.000
and instead we've allowed leftists to take over our states our schools our country and so that's what
00:23:20.920
continues to motivate me is to look at my kids i've got two boys too two younger boys and and with
00:23:25.720
four kids you look at them and you go look i want to know that i've done all i can to make
00:23:30.440
oklahoma make the country a better place for them and then as i get to meet parents all over
00:23:34.760
the state you know it was an honor to run for this office i went to all 77 counties met all these
00:23:38.680
parents you know hey you want them to be able to tell their kids hey kids you know this state's
00:23:43.000
going to be better for you we're going to keep fighting for you we wanted to be encouraging for
00:23:46.520
them so that's why i keep doing it as for all those parents all the kids out there all the
00:23:50.680
families you want to make a oklahoma in the country a better place no doubt uh i had the honor of
00:23:56.600
meeting your family uh you have just the cutest family uh your wife is beautiful your kids are
00:24:02.520
just adorable so uh you're certainly blessed and i would imagine that's a big part and why you push
00:24:09.640
back in the way that you do uh and so ryan i'm so grateful for you i wish every state had a
00:24:16.680
superintendent like you uh the world would be a better place the country would be a better place and so
00:24:22.760
we're grateful for you uh we are on your side a hundred percent uh but in the meantime keep
00:24:28.680
pushing and we'll keep amplifying well riley that means so much i appreciate the opportunity to be on
00:24:34.520
your show today and i'm gonna tell you i can't thank you enough for the work you're doing you
00:24:37.480
are one of the most powerful individuals across the country you have led for our young girls you
00:24:42.200
have meant so much of the state of oklahoma but for so many parents and kids across the country
00:24:46.920
thank you for what you're doing i appreciate it so much and i know i'm speaking for millions of
00:24:51.720
people across the country that would love to say thank you uh for all that you're doing for the
00:24:55.720
country if every state had a superintendent like ryan uh the world not even just the country the world
00:25:03.080
would be a better place uh thank you guys for checking out the interview make sure you like
00:25:08.360
and subscribe anywhere where you get your podcasts you can check us out at outkick.com