OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma State Department of Education’s request for bids from Bible suppliers, which many speculated would result in the purchase of Bibles affiliated with former president Donald Trump, has been changed at the urging of another state agency.
The Education Department’s original request for 55,000 King James Version Bibles to place in Oklahoma classrooms would have accepted only products bound in leather or a leather-like material that also contain the Pledge of Allegiance, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution.
The agency announced Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, it amended its request for proposal, called an RFP, to allow the extra documents to be bound separately from the Bible when provided to schools. The new RFP also adds “price” to the evaluation criteria.
The Office of Management and Enterprise Services, which oversees RFPs and state contracts, requested the changes. The Education Department and its head, state Superintendent Ryan Walters, said they are “pleased to make” the amendments. OMES did not return a request for comment.
Reporting by Oklahoma Watch found few Bibles would have met the original RFP requirements, but two products matched the criteria — both of which are Bibles endorsed by the Trump family.
Trump has earned a name, image and likeness fee for his endorsement of Lee Greenwood’s $60 God Bless the USA Bible. A similar $90 product, called the We the People Bible, has been endorsed by Donald Trump Jr.
Walters has endorsed the former president for reelection.
He ordered all public school districts in Oklahoma to keep a copy of the Bible in classrooms as a historical reference and to incorporate the Christian text into their lesson plans, especially for history courses.
Walters said the bid process wasn’t targeted at any particular vendor. Doing so would be illegal.
“There are numerous Bible vendors in this country that have the capacity to fulfill this request,” he said in a statement Tuesday. “The purpose of the RFP process is to find a vendor that can provide the product we need, of reasonable quality, at the best value. There are numerous state employees engaged and committed to a process to determine who that best vendor will be, and I have no involvement in that process, as it should be.”
Vendors have until Oct. 21 to submit bids under the amended RFP. The winning bidder will be awarded a one-year contract to ship 55,000 copies of the Bible to Oklahoma schools two weeks after receiving the contract.
Walters said his agency set aside $3 million to pay for the Bibles and will request another $3 million from the state Legislature next year. A spokesperson for Walters said the agency is using money saved from administrative and personnel costs.
Rep. Mark McBride, R-Moore, requested an opinion from Attorney General Gentner Drummond about whether the Education Department can move funds from one budget category to another without legislative approval. McBride, who leads a House committee on education funding, also asked whether this expense would require approval from OMES and the governor’s secretary of education.
The amended RFP requests the extra founding documents to be bound in durable material when provided separately from the Bible. The Bible is not allowed to contain study guides nor additional commentary, according to the RFP documents.
“My number one goal is to ensure that our classrooms have copies of the Bible so that it can be utilized as an appropriate tool to properly and accurately teach Oklahoma students of its important influence in the history of our country and its secular value. Period,” Walters said.
However, several district leaders have said they have no plans to incorporate the Bible into their school curricula beyond what is required in Oklahoma Academic Standards.
The academic standards already mandate that schools teach about world religions and the role of religion in the establishment of American colonial governments. Oklahoma law allows districts to decide how they teach state standards.
A school-focused law firm in Oklahoma City, The Center for Education Law, predicted Walters’ Bible mandate is “likely” to end up in court. A coalition of civil rights organizations, including church-state separation advocates and the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma, has requested public records explaining the $3 million budget and the Bible mandate.
“Diverting millions of taxpayer dollars to purchase Bibles is nothing more than a blatant attempt to divide Oklahomans along religious lines and undermine the public-school system,” said Dan Mach, director of the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief.