Oklahoma revokes teacher’s license after protest of book ban

Summer Boismier, a high school English teacher in Oklahoma, lost her state teaching license in 2024 after protesting laws that pressured teachers to remove books on race, gender and sexuality; this fall she filed a federal lawsuit against the state and former state superintendent Ryan Walters, arguing her free-speech and due-process rights were violated.

Ms. Boismier had built a 500-volume classroom library on a $58,000 salary and publicly protested the new rules by covering her shelves with paper, posting signs that read “Books the state doesn’t want you to read,” and putting up a QR code linking to the Brooklyn Public Library’s Books Unbanned project.

A parent complained, the school told her not to return, and she resigned rather than stop protesting, according to her court filings and interviews. The measures that prompted the dispute included HB 1775, which barred teachers from discussing a list of so-called “divisive concepts,” and a separate law requiring that books in schools be “age appropriate.” Mr.

Walters asked the state Board of Education to revoke Ms. Boismier’s certification, and after an administrative hearing in June 2023 in which a hearing officer recommended she keep her license, the State Board later voted unanimously to end her right to teach public school. Ms.

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