Oklahoma
A month after Nex Benedict’s death: Crisis calls, anti-LGBTQ+ both on the rise in Oklahoma
Nex Benedict remembered with demonstration in front of Owasso High
Members of the Owasso community, including current and former Owasso High School students, gather for peaceful demonstration in honor of Nex Benedict.
National and local LGBTQ+ advocates spoke this week about Nex Benedict’s death and the anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric surrounding the tragedy, one month after a reported altercation involving the 16-year-old.
Advocates blamed Oklahoma state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters for fueling hateful sentiments toward Oklahoma’s LGBTQ+ community, and called for an explanation from the Oklahoma State Department of Education and Owasso Public Schools.
Oklahoma City native Sara Cunningham, the founder of Free Mom Hugs, said the state government is ripping protections from the LGBTQ+ community, but vowed to continue efforts to combat these attempts.
“If you don’t hear the cry of the oppressed, then you are not listening,” Cunningham said.
What happened to Nex Benedict?
Benedict was a 16-year-old Owasso High School student who died in February after sustaining injuries in an altercation on school grounds. Medical examiners are still completing their investigation into what caused the death of Benedict, but police said Feb. 21 that an autopsy determined Nex did not die as a result of trauma.
News of the high school sophomore’s death has generated widespread attention, in part because of the student’s gender-expansive identity and claims of bullying that led up to the fight.
Critics blame Nex Benedict’s death on anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric from Ryan Walters, ‘Libs of TikTok’
Critics and LGBTQ+ advocates argue negativity amplified by Walters and right-wing social media accounts has fed aggression toward LGBTQ+ individuals.
Chasten Buttigieg, an LGBTQ+ advocate and spouse of U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, said Walters is failing to keep students like Benedict safe in schools by hiring anti-LGBTQ+ people to prominent positions, such as Chaya Raichik, the creator of right-wing social media account “Libs of TikTok.”
In January, Raichik was named to an Oklahoma library media advisory committee by Walters.
“You’re bringing in somebody who’s famous for riling up people on the internet, who traffics in arrangement engagement, as I like to call it, and you’re putting them in a position of power specifically related to the education of young children,” Chasten said.
Raichik is not qualified to be on the advisory committee, Chasten said, adding that he wants to see qualified people in Oklahoma education who care about the state’s students.
Oklahoma consistently ranks low in terms of education, recently ranking second to last. Chasten said this is what Walters should be focusing on.
“Every kid deserves a classroom where it is OK to be themselves, to focus on their learning and know that the adults in power have their backs,” Chasten said. “Nex was robbed of that opportunity, and the state superintendent should be extremely embarrassed.”
Ryan Walters, ‘Libs of TikTok’ respond to criticism
In response to criticism from LGBTQ+ advocates blaming Benedict’s death on Walters’ rhetoric, state Education Department spokesperson Dan Isett said Walters is heartbroken by Benedict’s death, and that the “radical left” is using the situation in a “political game.”
“What we have seen is the radical left and their allies in the liberal media taking partial information, distorting it, and exploiting the death of a young Oklahoman to play a desperate political game,” Isett said. “It is another example of the extreme gender ideology the left wants to push on our schools.”
Raichik has denied on social media the claims suggesting she played a role in Benedict’s death.
HRC launches separate Owasso High investigation, citing lack of trust in Walters, state Department of Education
Last week, Owasso High School confirmed the U.S. Department of Education will launch a civil rights investigation into the district.
The investigation will look into allegations that Owasso Public Schools failed to adequately address reports of sex-based harassment.
During the Thursday news conference, Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said the HRC doesn’t have faith in Walters to investigate Owasso High School, and the organization is seeking an explanation of what happened on Feb. 7, and what led up to it.
Robinson said the organization also is seeking answers as to how the school district and its administration handle anti-LGBTQ+ harassment.
The group also is asking the U.S. Department of Education to investigate the state Education Department’s role in Benedict’s death.
“Nex had a whole life left to live and it’s no coincidence that what happened to them happened in the state where elected officials and adults like Superintendent Ryan Walters have repeatedly villainized trans kids,” Robinson said.
In a statement from an Owasso Public Schools spokesperson, the spokesperson said the safety and security of the district’s students is its top priority, adding that it’s committed to fostering a safe and inclusive environment for everyone.
The spokesperson said all reported bullying accusations are investigated by administrators and reviewed by the district’s director of safety and security.
According to the spokesperson, Owasso High School students go to an assembly at the beginning of each school year where they’re introduced to their school resource officers and district’s director of safety and security and review the school district’s handbook with school leaders.
Crisis calls increased after Nex Benedict’s death
Lance Preston, founder and executive director of the Rainbow Youth Project, said after Benedict’s death, the organization’s crisis call center received 1,000 contacts from Oklahoma in February, and the large majority of those occurred after Benedict’s death was reported in the news. He said 87% of those callers reported bullying in Oklahoma schools.
Preston said typically, the call center receives an average of 350 contacts from Oklahoma each month.
In March 2023, it received 63 Oklahoma calls. That number shot up to 406 the following July, and 453 in August amid anti-LGBTQ+ policies and rhetoric from elected officials, Preston said.
The Rainbow Youth Project has been assisting three other students at Owasso High School who reported incidences of bullying starting last September.
After Benedict’s death, several former and current Owasso students told The Oklahoman they recognized their own experiences in Benedict’s story. They described instances of repeated bullying and harassment over their gender identities and sexualities and said they often felt administrators failed to appropriately intervene.
So far this year, the hotline has received 3,331 calls, and 81% of those highlight bullying across the country as a key factor behind the caller’s emotional distress, Preston said.
“These kids are hurting, not only from Nex Benedict’s tragic death, but they’re hurting from the political rhetoric that Ryan Walters continues to spew even after (Benedict’s) death,” Preston said.
Advocacy group tracks anti-LGBTQ+ incidents after Nex Benedict’s death
Although the exact details of the fight are unclear, Benedict’s family and friends have said Benedict was routinely bullied because of their gender identity.
The FBI’s 2022 crime report showed that anti-LGBTQ+ hate crime reports increased from the previous year, with a 13.8% hump in reports based on sexual orientation and a 32.9% increase in reported hate crimes based on gender identity.
Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation began sorting reported anti-LGBTQ+ incidences in Oklahoma after Benedict’s death. The organizations data reports 18 incidents since September 2022.
Nex Benedict’s Choctaw heritage points to broader crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people
Benedict was of Choctaw heritage, and Nicole McAfee, executive director of Freedom Oklahoma, said policy isolation of those who are trans or 2-Spirit isn’t new. They added that it’s not that different from Indigenous, 2-Spirit and queer youth who often didn’t survive forced removal and placement into residential boarding schools, which caused a loss of language for gender expansiveness and queerness.
“But, we remember and we’ve unearthed old language and develop new language and documented our own histories, and still, too many people in Oklahoma see 2SLGBTQ+ folks as something they can take apart so they can understand how to socialize us away from queerness or tried to wipe us from existence once again,” McAfee said.
McAfee said Benedict was an Indigenous person who died on Indigenous land, which speaks to the larger missing and murdered Indigenous relatives crisis.
It also speaks to the McGirt v. Oklahoma decision and whether there should be federal and tribal agencies engaged in the investigation into Benedict’s death, McAfee said.
Anti-LGBTQ+ bills crowd Oklahoma Legislature
At the beginning of Oklahoma’s 2024 legislative session, over 50 bills targeting members of the LGBTQ+ community were filed during the 2024 legislative session in Oklahoma, and about a handful advanced from committee.
These bills target public school activities and curriculum related to LGBTQ+ topics, speech and expression and would allow certain religious exemptions.
Robinson said she’s seen the impact that anti-LGBTQ+ bills have had on families.
“I’ve made too many phone calls to parents who have lost a child to hatred,” Robinson said. “I’ve tried to comfort children who have been traumatized by bullies and bigots — many of those bullies being adult elected officials.”
McAfee said Oklahoma politicians are political posturing and advancing laws and policies that create a hostile environment among the state’s vulnerable residents.
At the same time, state politicians are either ignoring the death of Benedict and pretending LGBTQ+ Oklahomans are some sort of myth, McAfee said, or they’re clarifying their disgust for the state’s queer community.
They said Oklahoma leaders and enforcers of the status quo are trying to make the state unsafe for LGBTQ+ youth, but queer advocates will dismantle every obstacle to protect them.
Oklahoma’s early exit at the SEC Tournament opened the door for UCLA to take the lead in the home run race.
Kendall Wells, who was named the SEC Freshman of the Year on Friday for her outstanding 2026 season, went 0-for-3 with a walk in Thursday’s defeat to Georgia, meaning she enters the NCAA Tournament sitting on 36 home runs.
She’s no longer chasing former Arizona star Laura Espinoza, however.
UCLA slugger Megan Grant hit home runs on Friday and Saturday to equal and surpass the record set by Espinoza in 1995.
Grant broke the record in the top of the third inning in Saturday’s Big Ten Championship Game. She hammered the 0-2 delivery from former OU pitcher Jordy Frahm for home run No. 38.
The solo shot put the Bruins up 2-0, but Frahm and the Cornhuskers roared back to win the game 7-2.
Wells still has the entire NCAA Tournament to chase down and pass Grant. Her next home run will tie Espinoza’s mark of 37 long balls.
It wouldn’t be the first time things have shifted in this massive 2026 home run race, either.
OU was the first team to catch and surpass the 161 home runs hit by the 2021 Sooners.
UCLA’s run at the Big Ten Tournament flipped the race.
The Bruins homered four times against Penn State on Thursday and four times on Friday against Wisconsin before Grant’s record-breaking blast on Saturday.
As a result, UCLA will enter the NCAA Tournament having hit 182 home runs to Oklahoma’s 174 home runs, and the Sooners have played one additional game.
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Both teams a virtually guaranteed to be hosting regionals when the full NCAA Tournament field is revealed on Sunday evening.
Despite the loss to Georgia, Oklahoma is in strong position to earn a top four seed in the tournament. Patty Gasso’s team enters the tournament 48-8 overall, including a 20-4 mark in SEC play during the regular season, which clinched the program’s second-straight regular season crown.
Should the Sooners advance out of the first weekend of the tournament, they are also projected to host a Super Regional at Love’s Field.
UCLA finished the weekend 47-8 overall following their run at the Big Ten Tournament, and the Bruins went 20-4 in league play during the regular season.
The NCAA Tournament Selection Show will air on ESPN2 on Sunday at 6 p.m.
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Tensions over changes to transportation between the Oklahoma County Detention Center and courthouse reached a peak during a special meeting of the jail’s governing trust on Friday.
Early in April, Sheriff Tommie Johnson III announced he would no longer task any of his own deputies with driving inmates and detainees the half-mile route from the jail to their court hearings, effective May 11. However, from May 11 through June 30, Johnson’s plan included keeping some deputies on the assignment to train and work alongside the jail’s own detention officers.
Along the way, other members of the jail trust have expressed some concerns about the trust’s ability to fully assume the transportation duties.
Oklahoma County’s district attorney, chief public defender, and presiding judge all made rare appearances at the trust meeting on Friday to share some of their own thoughts.
“I want you to consider this decision on whether or not the detention center should take over transport of detainees from the jail to the courthouse, because there is no plan,” District Attorney Vicki Behenna told the trust. “There are no employees at the detention center right now that can fulfill this obligation.”
Behenna also cited concerns that the already understaffed jail would face a worsening staffing situation if it has to pull some of its existing detention officers to provide transportation.
“In my opinion, and the opinion of other lawyers in my office, the indenture requires the Sheriff’s department to do transport,” she added, referencing the indenture which created and assigned control of jail operations to the trust in 2020.
Sheriff Tommie Johnson III cited his own budget concerns as a reason to discontinue the transportation service. His office believes it needs roughly 17 to 19 more deputies inside the courthouse for court security, and it could begin by reassigning
Presiding District Court Judge Sheila Stinson shared her own remarks with the trust, stating that this week alone, three judges had faced death threats. Johnson said his ambition is to have a deputy in every courtroom.
Ultimately, Behenna suggested the trust should not accept the end of the contract and that the sheriff has a duty to continue providing the service, regardless of if the sheriff is paid for the service.
In response, Sheriff Johnson accused the district attorney of being misleading.
“Considering the gross amount of misrepresentation in this section, and relative ease to obtain the correct information, I must assume — I must assume — that this was intentionally misstated to persuade this body to make an ill-informed decision to further the DA’s agenda,” he said.
The district attorney and sheriff eventually got into a back-and-forth.
“Sheriff Johnson, I don’t understand why you have such a visceral reaction to me,” Behenna stated. “If the DA has an agenda, my agenda is public safety.”
Tensions settled some later in the meeting, with trust members still pressed to find an alternative solution.
Trustee Derrick Scobey proposed a solution for the trust and sheriff to work together to find a private partner to operate the transportation service, rather than tasking their own in-house staff to perform the duties.
Sheriff Johnson eventually agreed that his office could help identify a private partner, but that the timeline for gradually taking his deputies out of the task would remain.
Jail administrator Tim Kimrey acknowledged that three of his detention officers would be available starting Monday to work alongside three of Johnson’s deputies to train and learn about the transportation duties while both parties work to find a private partner.
Kimrey said his office had already begun some research on private jail transportation partners, including The GEO Group, TransCor, and LaSalle Corrections.
The trust postponed officially accepting the end of the sheriff’s contract until its next meeting.
Oklahoma
Chad Weiberg Says Oklahoma State Doesn’t Intend on Using RedBird Credit Line from Big 12 Deal
For the time being, Oklahoma State will not opt in to the credit line through the Big 12’s recent deal with RedBird.
In case you missed it last week, the Big 12 approved a five-year agreement with RedBird Capital Partners, becoming the first conference to have a league-wide, private capital deal.
The deal provides the Big 12 with a $12.5 million capital infusion while the league’s institutions have the opportunity to opt into a $30 million credit line that would have to be paid back with a “double-digit” interest rate, according to ESPN.
It doesn’t sound like many (if any) schools will take RedBird up on that deal, and that includes Oklahoma State. OSU athletic director Chad Weiberg spoke with Dave Hunziker in a podcast that released Friday, where Weiberg cleared things up from the OSU side of things.
“First of all, I give commissioner (Brett) Yormark a lot of credit for providing opportunities to the schools to look at,” Weiberg said. “He is an innovator. He pushes the envelope. He’s not afraid of trying new things to better the conference and all the member institutions. So, I think there’s a little bit of a misconception on this. This isn’t a private equity deal. There’s no ownership stake or control in the conference they’re taking. It’s more of a private investment opportunity. RedBird is a huge global entity. They’ve got a lot of partnerships. The conference office will get out of it some money to be able to invest in some other business entities, take an investment in those to try to grow revenues from a different revenue stream. I think that’s something that’s worth exploring in this time that we’re in. And then the schools have the option to opt into a line of credit through that, and that’s up to each institution. It doesn’t effect the deal with the conference itself.
“As of right now, that is something that Oklahoma State will not do at this point. Should we need something like that, we believe we have other avenues or levers we could pull first before that. But again, I applaud the commissioner for making those options available to us.”
Weiberg and Hunziker also got into some other financial matters, like the report last week that the Big Ten distributed a record $1.37 billion to its 18 members in the 2024-25 fiscal year — a jump of about $500 million. The SEC announced in February that it had distributed more than $1 billion to its 16 members for the fiscal year.
So, dividing that up, that’s about $76 million on average for each Big Ten school and about $62.5 million for each SEC school.
The Big 12 hasn’t announced its allocations yet, but Weiberg said he expects the average Big 12 distribution to come in “north of $35 million.”
“That’s a wide discrepancy,” Weiberg said. “It’s a wider discrepancy than we’ve ever seen in the history of college athletics.”
To try to level that playing field as much as possible, Weiberg said OSU has asked all of its programs to cut expenses by 10%, OSU has increased ticket prices and the Boys From Oklahoma concerts have also helped with that.
It’s an uphill battle, but Weiberg noted that OSU has had to compete with the likes of Texas, one of the highest-funded athletic departments in the country, for years.
“There’s a bigger discrepancy now between what some conferences are getting and what others are than there ever has been before,” Weiberg said. “So, that presents unique challenges in terms of just the level playing field. At the end of the day, when you’re in a competition, part of what makes the competition interesting is when you’re trying to compete on a level playing field. Now, I say that acknowledging that there’s never an exactly level playing field — I don’t care if its the NFL or Major League Baseball or whatever, there’s not that. But I think to keep it interesting, there needs to be some version of a level playing field, and that’s getting very tilted in this environment.
“We’ve competed before. We’ve never been the highest-resourced institution in our conference or in the country or anything like that, and we’ve competed at a very high level in all of our sports, from football through all the other sports. Obviously the 55 national championships are a great indicator of that.”
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