That’s what Laney Dicksion mumbled as she angrily flipped via Gender Queer—a graphic memoir about exploring gender id and sexuality—for an area Oklahoma TV broadcast final month.
However the interview was not in regards to the ebook the American Library Affiliation ranked as its most challenged (or rebuked) of 2021. It was about one mom’s determination to complain to Norman Excessive College officers about her daughter’s English trainer, Summer season Boismier.
Dicksion urged the trainer ought to doubtlessly face prison prices. Her alleged crime? Offering college students like Dicksion’s daughter with a QR code main them to UnBanned—a Brooklyn Public Library program providing youngsters limitless digital and audio entry to banned or challenged books—on the primary day of college final month. Boismier did so after up to date pointers and a restrictive new legislation impressed her to cowl her whole classroom library in butcher paper, which she adorned with the phrase “Books the state doesn’t need you to learn.”
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Courtesy of Summer season Boismier
“The lady has entry to youngsters and to minors,” the Oklahoma mother advised Fox 25 after studying elements of Gender Queerout loud and describing it, dubiously, as “pornographic materials.” “Nobody ought to be allowed to disseminate this to youngsters, a lot much less a trainer in our public faculty techniques.”
Boismier resigned simply days after meting out the QR code. In so doing, she styled herself a defiant champion of free thought in Oklahoma, a state that final yr enacted a legislation—HB 1775—focusing on so-called crucial race principle. The proper-wing bete noire is successfully nonexistent within the courses taught to younger American children, at the same time as rage about it has fed a bigger cultural panic over schooling nationwide.
At Norman Colleges, the legislation was adopted by a brand new coverage requiring academics to evaluation all texts in case they ran afoul of the principles. The QR code—and her touch upon the quilt bookshelf—was Boismier’s response to all of that.
If giving out the code was supposed to forged scrutiny on an schooling crackdown, Boismier says the fact is that it has landed her within the crosshairs. The trainer advised The Each day Beast on Friday that her departure has been adopted by a slew of vulgar and threatening messages, together with one which prompted her to contact the Metropolis of Oklahoma Metropolis Police. Which is to say she’s a brand new addition to a unending roster of targets for right-wing on-line cranks who don’t hesitate to throw round phrases like “pedophile” when going after individuals who unfold concepts they discover uncomfortable.
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Courtesy of Summer season Boismier
There isn’t a proof that Dicksion—who didn’t reply to a request for remark—has any connection to any threats towards Boismier. In a Wednesday incident report obtained by The Each day Beast, the trainer advised authorities that “she has been doxed and is apprehensive folks could present as much as her residence.” The trainer mentioned that since her story went viral in latest days, she has not stayed in her residence as a result of she “needs to be cautious and take this critically.”
A few of the social media messages Boismier acquired that have been reviewed by The Each day Beast inspired others to publish her title and handle on-line, to “throw her corpse in jail,” and misgender her.
“I’ve been getting messages saying I ought to be lynched or that I ought to be sterilized so I can’t breed,” she mentioned. “Every kind of actually wild, hateful stuff.”
Not serving to issues, in keeping with Boismier, is that she caught the eye of Oklahoma Secretary of Public Schooling Ryan Walters, who despatched a letter to the state Board of Schooling on Wednesday demanding the revocation of Boismier’s instructing certification.
However Boismier refuses to apologize for her actions and insists that she goes to proceed to speak about HB 1775 and the hurt she believes it’s doing in lecture rooms.
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“I clearly touched a nerve and I’m dwelling rent-free in lots of people’s heads,” the trainer added. “To them I simply wish to ask, ‘Who damage you’?”
Courtesy of Summer season Boismier
The legislation prohibits colleges from “participating in race or sex-based discriminatory acts…. which end in treating people in another way on the idea of race or intercourse or the creation of a hostile setting.” In response to The Oklahoman, the invoice was pushed as a ban on so-called crucial race principle, regardless that these phrases don’t seem within the legislative textual content.
For Walters, nonetheless, Boismier’s intentions to make sure her college students had entry to all books has induced “hurt and disgrace for your entire [teaching] career.” After falsely stating that Boismier had been fired from Norman Public Colleges after a mum or dad’s criticism, Walters insisted in his letter that “there isn’t any place for a trainer with a liberal political agenda within the classroom.”
Walters, who’s now the Republican nominee for state superintendent, went so far as to assert that Boismier supplied “entry to banned and pornographic materials to college students.”
A spokesperson for the Oklahoma State Division of Schooling, the company Walters was appointed to by Gov. Kevin Stitt in 2020, subtly distanced it from him. ‘We aren’t commenting on his marketing campaign stunts, it might be like giving him a free advert,” the spokesperson added. Neither Stitt’s workplace nor Walters instantly responded to a request for remark.
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A spokesperson for Norman Public Colleges, the district through which Boismier previously taught, advised The Each day Beast it had no “response to Secretary Walters’ assertion” and careworn that “he has not contacted the district.”
“The trainer had not had any disciplinary points previous to this matter,” the college district spokesperson added. “Clearly we condemn threats or harassment of any form.”
However there are only some bona fide allies in the neighborhood for the exiled trainer.
Norman Mayor Larry Heikkila advised The Each day Beast that he is not going to “publicly assist both aspect,” suggesting that the Boismier’s actions may very well be seen as “direct disobedience.”
“My spouse was a trainer for 38 years, my older daughter is a trainer. I perceive academics and I additionally perceive that faculty boards set the usual and we’ve got to abide by these guidelines,” the mayor mentioned. He famous that neither he nor his metropolis council members have mentioned Boismier’s scenario, whereas condemning requires her hurt.
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For her half, Dicksion didn’t maintain again throughout her on-camera debut. “[Boismier’s] been referred to as an indoctrinator, a pedophile, a groomer and that is what these behaviors are. The lady mustn’t have entry to youngsters now, or sooner or later. She ought to be stripped of her certifications. To be completely frank with you, she ought to have prison prices towards her,” she mentioned.
Boismier mentioned that whereas she was thrown by Dicksion’s remark about her on TV, she was not precisely shocked given the rhetoric that has swirled round her resignation. Most of all, she mentioned, she blames officers like Walters and the Republican management within the state for placing a goal on her again.
“I’m a highschool trainer and these things doesn’t scare me,” she mentioned laughing. “You’re going to must attempt tougher than that.”
The Oklahoma Veterans Commission announced Monday the selection of another retired admiral to head the Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs, an agency embroiled in controversy since 2023.
Retired Rear Adm. James (Jay) Bynum will assume his duties Aug. 1, succeeding retired Rear Adm. Greg Slavonic, who will be leaving after leading the veterans agency since March 2023.
In announcing the appointment, the commission said Bynum would bring “a wealth of experience and a deep commitment to serving the veteran community” after three decades of operational leadership, government finance, data analytics and congressional relations experience.
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Earlier the commission had said it received nearly 50 applicants for the position and interviewed half a dozen in person. Slavonic announced his intention to retire in April, but agreed to remain in his post until a successor was found.
Slavonic was named to head the agency after a 2023 conflict between Joel Kintsel, then its executive director, and Gov. Kevin Stitt.
Kintsel, who had run unsuccessfully against Stitt in the 2022 Republican primary for governor, was fired after a dispute over appointments to the Veterans Commission, refusing at one point even to allow commissioners to meet inside the building because he claimed they had been illegally appointed by the governor.
Four of the nine commission positions remain unfilled.
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Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs in legal battle with contractors over Sallisaw veterans facility
During the same time period it became known that a new veterans facility being constructed in Sallisaw would not open on time and would require extensive modifications because of errors made in the design process. Revisions were estimated to cost more than $20 million.
The agency has filed a lawsuit against two contractors accused of negligence in designing the new 175-bed facility. It said design firm Orcutt Winslow and Cooper Project Advisors were responsible for the multi-million-dollar mistakes that held up completion of the center.
According to the lawsuit filed in Sequoyah County, the department hired Cooper to represent and advise it during the design phase of the project. Orcutt Winslow was hired as a subcontractor under the primary construction contractor, Flintco.
During construction, Flintco reportedly encountered numerous issues with the documents Orcutt Winslow submitted. For example, the lawsuit alleges Orcutt Winslow failed to incorporate the correct fire rating required by building codes.
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Orcutt Winslow and Cooper have declined to comment on the lawsuit.
A special appropriation from the state legislature was needed to get construction of the center back on track.
The commission said Bynum’s background has included consulting for mid-sized defense engineering and manufacturing companies, and serving as senior fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. He has also held positions at the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington, D.C., and served as a military legislative assistant/confrere for the staff of the late U.S. Sen. John McCain.
Bynum graduated from the University of Oklahoma’s Navy ROTC program and earned a Bachelor of Arts in management of information systems at OU. The commission said he completed the Capitol Hill Fellow program at Georgetown University, and received executive education from the Harvard Kennedy School, the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina, and the Naval Post Graduate School. He holds subspecialties in financial management and strategy.
His operational assignments include tours with Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 113, VFA-22 and a tour under the services Personnel Exchange Program where he deployed with the U.S. Air Force’s 94th Fighter Squadron. He commanded VFA-27, as part of the forward deployed U.S. Naval Forces in Japan, and Carrier Air Wing 3 as part of the Harry S. Truman Strike Group where he deployed in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom respectively.
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The department currently operates five facilities for veterans in Claremore, Ardmore, Sulphur, Norman and Lawton. A center in Talihina was recently closed in anticipation of opening the Sallisaw facility this fall.
After a meeting last month, the commission announced it was giving consideration to reducing the number of beds at its facilities throughout the state. A spokesman for the department said the current occupancy rate at state homes was less than 77% against a goal of 90%.
Oklahoma State football running back Ollie Gordon II was arrested on accusations of driving under the influence early on Sunday, according to multiple reports.
As first reported by News On 6 on Monday night — citing a probable cause affidavit from the Oklahoma Highway Patrol — Gordon was pulled over on Interstate 35 near Moore, south of Oklahoma City, after a trooper reported Gordon driving 82 mph in a 65 mph speed limit zone and swerving through traffic.
Here is everything to know of Gordon’s reported arrest:
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More: Oklahoma State football recruiting tracker: Which players are committed to 2025 class?
Ollie Gordon arrest details
According to additional reporting by Oklahoma City-based KOCO, the trooper who pulled Gordon over at roughly 2:30 a.m. reported smelling “an odor associated with an alcoholic beverage” from Gordon, who is 20 years old. Gordon reportedly denied drinking, saying he had been around friends who were. He then reportedly refused to take a field sobriety test before telling the trooper he had consumed one alcoholic beverage.
The trooper then reportedly asked Gordon whether he had any alcohol in the vehicle, to which Gordon replied he had two open containers of liquor. The trooper then reported finding “a half-full bottle of lemonade vodka and a half-full bottle of tequila,” per the report.
Per the report, the trooper again asked Gordon whether he would take a field sobriety test, which he again refused. He was then arrested on complaints of DUI under the age of 21, transporting an open container of alcohol, failing to manage a single lane of traffic and speeding 16-20 mph over the speed limit.
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Gordon reportedly had a blood alcohol content (BAC) of .11 and .10 when tested twice at the jail. The legal drinking limit in the state of Oklahoma is a .08 BAC.
More: Why Oklahoma State commit Adam Schobel wanted to be a quarterback ‘ever since I was little’
Oklahoma State statement
When reached by the USA TODAY Network for comment on Gordon’s reported arrest, an Oklahoma State spokesman said the university is aware of the situation but has no further comments at this time.
Gordon, listed as a junior on OSU’s football roster, is coming off a season in which he won the Doak Walker Award as the nation’s top running back. The Fort Worth, Texas, native is coming off a breakout season in which he rushed 285 times for 1,732 yards (6.1 yards per attempt) and 21 touchdowns.
Today is a historic day for the University of Oklahoma. The Sooners are officially SEC members and have left the Big 12 after years of dominating the conference.
Monday is a day of jubilation in Norman, with a flurry of activities and events planned to commemorate the historic move to the nation’s premier conference. The addition of four-star wide receiver Cortez Mills only adds to the excitement for the Sooners.
Mills, a terrific wideout out of Florida, chose the Sooners over offers from Clemson, Nebraska, LSU, and Florida. Oklahoma hosted Mills on an official visit in the spring, and he made it known then how much of a fan he was of what the Sooners were about.
🚨BREAKING🚨 4-star WR Cortez Mills has committed to Oklahoma⭕️
Emmett Jones built a strong relationship with the Mills, and the other 2025 wide receiver commits for OU also helped chip in. In short, Oklahoma stole Mills from Clemson’s hands, and the Sooners effectively stopped. Clemson entered the summer as the presumptive favorite, and Oklahoma made that ground up to overtake the lead.
After his official visit, the whispers around Oklahoma got louder, and ultimately, the Sooners and Jones earned his commitment.
With Mills on board, the Sooners bring in the No. 196-ranked player in the 247Sports rankings and the 88th-ranked overall prospect in 247’s Composite rankings. He’s a consensus four-star prospect on every primary recruiting service.
Mills wins with long speed and athleticism, allowing him to turn 50/50 balls into 70/30 balls. He will be an excellent addition to the Sooners and should thrive winning on the outside in this offense.
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Brent Venables’ team now has 20 commits for the 2025 class, passing Texas A&M and the Oregon Ducks to possess the fifth-ranked recruiting class in the 247Sports team recruiting rankings.
Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on X, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions.You can also follow Bryant on X @thatmanbryant.
