Here are five takeaways from the Frontier’s reporting on the lack of a required police training on working hate crime cases.

Read the full story here.

1.  Oklahoma’s hate crime law doesn’t include protections for gender or sexual orientation. And while the federal statute covers more protected classes, it only applies in specific situations. 
2. Since 2018, hate crimes based on sexual orientation have been reported to the FBI more often than crimes based on gender or gender identity. From 2015 to 2019, about 24% of crimes included in a U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics self-reported survey were based on gender. But according to FBI data for that same time period, an average of about 2% of reported crimes nationwide were based on gender identity, and an average of about 0.6% were based on gender. 
3. The state can’t prosecute hate crime cases based on gender or sexual orientation, but local law enforcement still does much of the legwork of investigations, referring cases to federal prosecutors, and reporting incidents to the FBI. 
4. Oklahoma is one of 32 states without a requirement in statute that police complete training on investigating hate crimes and working with victims. Though some agencies reported offering hate crime-related training, the topics they covered were varied. 
5. The state Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training created training objectives that must be taught in every police academy across the state. But their civil rights standards don’t require officers to be taught about the federal statute that covers hate crimes based on gender and sexual orientation. 

The post Five things to know about Oklahoma’s hate crime law appeared first on The Frontier.

There’s still a burn mark on the floor of the Donut Hole in Tulsa more than a year after Coby Dale Green threw a Molotov cocktail into the shop. 

Store owner Sarah Swain hosted an exhibit by a local artist where drag performers handed out donuts behind the counter in October 2022. Weeks later, Green shattered the windows and threw the explosive device inside the store, leaving anti-LGBTQ fliers taped to the door of a neighboring business. Federal authorities didn’t arrest him for more than six months.

During that time, Green attended a drag brunch at another Tulsa business and allegedly started yelling slurs during the performance. The business owner declined an interview but claimed in court documents Green stalked and harassed her, and a judge issued a protective order against him. The Frontier isn’t identifying the business owner because she fears more harassment. 

For months before Green’s arrest, Swain kept a can of bear mace and a gun with her. She mapped out escape routes as she worked late nights preparing donuts for the mornings. And she scanned every line of customers for anyone who even slightly resembled Green. 

Green pleaded guilty to malicious use of explosives and was sentenced in December to serve five years in federal prison and another three years of probation. His sentence includes an enhancement for committing a hate crime. 

Swain’s case didn’t fit the criteria to be prosecuted under a federal hate crimes statute. And while 22 other states recognize incidents based on gender and sexual orientation as hate crimes, which can carry harsher penalties, Oklahoma law still doesn’t. Green’s attorneys declined to comment. 

Green also wasn’t charged under Tulsa’s hate crimes ordinance, which includes penalties of up to $1,000, six months in jail or both. Tulsa is one of just a few cities in the state that can prosecute hate crimes based on gender and sexual orientation because of a local law enacted in September 2020 that covers more protected classes than state law. But three years later, the only arrest Tulsa police have made under the ordinance was for malicious harassment based on race in October 2021. The charge was later dismissed.

Swain said she’s thankful she no longer has to worry about Green returning to her business unexpectedly or harming the community more.  

“I feel like I didn’t ever turn off mentally until they came in here and told me they arrested him that morning,” Swain said.

She’s concerned that a lack of protection in state law and a narrow federal law mean the perpetrators of similar crimes could get lesser sentences.

Eight local law enforcement agencies told The Frontier they still investigate those incidents as potential hate crimes, even if the state can’t prosecute them that way. But some experts believe gaps in the law prevent incidents based on gender or sexual orientation from being reported. Some LGBTQ community members also don’t report incidents because of mistrust for law enforcement. Oklahoma is one of 32 states without a requirement in statute that police go through training on investigating hate crimes and working with victims.

Hate crime cases based on gender and sexual orientation can fall to federal authorities, though the applicable law only covers specific cases and the bar for prosecution is high. Prosecutors rely partly on local law enforcement to refer incidents, said Robert Troester, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma. But Troester said he believes many crimes go unreported because of gaps in state law. 

Out of 63 hate crimes reported in Oklahoma in 2022, only 12 were based on sexual orientation, according to data from local law enforcement collected by the FBI. There were just two crimes based on gender identity reported and none based on gender that year. 

“I would be very surprised if many people in the state would report a hate crime if they thought it was based on orientation because it’s not under state law,” Troester said. 

Local law enforcement are required to report potential hate crimes through a system that the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation maintains. But state statute does not require police departments to categorize incidents based on gender and sexual orientation as hate crimes or to report them to the State Bureau of Investigation as such. 

Underreporting and a high bar for prosecutors 

The Frontier surveyed the state’s 30 largest police and sheriff’s departments on how they identify, report and investigate potential hate crimes. Officials for the eight departments that responded said they go beyond state law to report gender or sexual orientation-related hate crimes to the State Bureau of Investigation.

Representatives from five agencies said they believe crime in their communities is underreported. Two departments mentioned outreach to minority groups to encourage reporting.  

Reports of potential hate crimes from local law enforcement are also sent to the FBI. The FBI transitioned to the National Incident-Based Reporting System in 2021, which allows for more detailed data collection. All 461 departments in Oklahoma are now using the new system. 

The evidence that investigators gather is passed onto federal authorities, who can prosecute crimes based on gender and sexual orientation under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, named after a gay man who was attacked by two men and left to die, and a Black man who was killed by white supremacists. 

But the federal law only applies when a person causes or attempts to cause bodily harm in specific situations, like if the crime affects interstate or foreign commerce. Any prosecution requires certification from the U.S. Attorney General or a designee that the state where the crime occurred doesn’t have jurisdiction over the case, and that the federal government’s involvement is in the public interest. 

The only hate crime the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma’s office has prosecuted under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was the June 2019 assault of a Black man outside of a bar in Shawnee. The incident wasn’t sent to their office as a hate crime, which shows the importance of training officers on identifying those incidents, said Julia Barry, Western District civil rights coordinator.

The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics conducts a national survey on crime victimization each year that some experts use as a tool to measure underreporting to police. Over the past five years, crimes based on sexual orientation have been reported to the FBI more often than crimes based on gender or gender identity. 

The FBI has separate bias categories for gender and gender identity, but the National Crime Victimization Survey doesn’t. About 24% of violent incidents reported in the National Crime Victimization Survey from 2015 to 2019 were believed to be based on gender. According to FBI data for that same time period, an average of about 2% of reported crimes nationwide were based on gender identity, and an average of about 0.6% were based on gender. 

Meredith Worthen, a sociology professor at the University of Oklahoma who studies LGBTQ issues, said it’s impossible to get completely accurate data for any type of victimization. Experts refer to this issue as the “dark figure of crime.” But there are additional safety and privacy concerns for many LGBTQ people, Worthen said.

Some agencies boost LGBTQ outreach

The group Rural Oklahoma Pride has organized LGBTQ celebrations in Oklahoma towns over the past two years, including in Ada and Lawton. Co-founders Jacob Jeffery and Bryan Paddack said their group has received threats through social media in some towns. They told local law enforcement about the threats in some instances and police responded with increased security at events, Jeffery said. 

There are a variety of reasons why victims might choose not to interact with police to report a crime. Jeffery said some LGBTQ community members might worry that officers could ask unwanted or insensitive questions about their gender or sexual orientation, among other concerns. 

The Tulsa Police Department has stepped up outreach efforts to the community. As Tulsa’s LGBTQ Community Liaison Officer, Thomas Bell said his job is focused on building trust. He teaches rookies in the department’s academy on how to refer to people with the appropriate genders and pronouns. 

The Tulsa Police Department created the position in 2017, after acknowledging that both historical events like the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City and a lack of communication locally had led to a tense relationship between LGBTQ community members and police. Bell said it’s helpful for the agency to have a specific officer that residents know they can come to with issues. Many of the calls he gets are from community members asking if they should report an incident to police or requesting follow ups on cases like the targeting of the Donut Hole. He also sometimes receives questions from officers about ways to build trust with victims and assure them they’re taking an investigation seriously. 

“I hope that we’re so successful in what we’re doing that I’m told someday, ‘Yeah, we don’t really need a liaison anymore because they’re good with us.’ And they don’t have any fear when they call us for a report, and they reach out to us for help when they need it,” Bell said. 

No training requirements in state law 

Eighteen states require training for law enforcement on how to identify and investigate hate crimes. Of those, 13 explicitly include training to investigate crimes based on gender and sexual orientation. 

But in Oklahoma, the amount and specific focuses of hate crime-related training are up to the discretion of individual law enforcement agencies. The Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training requires police academies across the state to include training on civil rights, but they aren’t required to cover the federal hate crimes statute. 

The eight respondents to The Frontier survey said their officers receive training on how to identify and investigate hate crimes, either through the Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training basic academy or continuing education training, or their own police academy and additional instruction. But some described their training as cultural awareness or diversity, racial intelligence or community engagement. 

A spokesperson for the Broken Arrow Police Department said police recruits take an eight-hour class on cultural awareness and racial intelligence that includes legal definitions for different crimes and ways to document evidence of potential hate crimes in incident reports. The Edmond Police Department offers civil rights and hate crime training through its academy and continuing education classes, a spokesperson said. And a spokesperson for the Norman Police Department said its academy includes an 8-hour training block on how to identify and investigate potential hate crimes, and another 8-hour block on cultural diversity, including gender and sexual orientation. 

The federal government has launched several initiatives, including one created in 2021 to help local agencies do education and outreach on hate crimes, and another established in 2022 creating state-run hotlines to encourage hate crime reporting. But no agencies in Oklahoma received that funding for the 2023 fiscal year. 

The Matthew Shepard Foundation did in-person training for law enforcement across the country for a few years, focusing on helping officers identify and report bias crimes, and interact with victims respectfully. But founder Judy Shepard, the mother of Matthew Shepard, said no agencies in Oklahoma ever asked her team to visit.

All three U.S. Attorneys’ offices in Oklahoma train local police officers on the federal hate crimes statutes and emphasize that federal prosecutors have a path for prosecuting some bias crimes that state agencies lack. A representative from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma in Muskogee   provides civil rights training to many new officers attending the Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training police academy in Ada. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office said the training goes beyond state standards by also covering the federal hate crimes statutes and methods for working with victims. 

The Western District’s office works with the Oklahoma City FBI field office to try to reach as many law enforcement agencies in their area as possible, but they can’t reach all of them. They prioritize departments where they have existing relationships, as well as areas with either disproportionately high reports of hate crimes or signs of underreporting, said Adam Berry, an FBI special agent. 

Full-time officers in Oklahoma are required to complete 25 hours of continuing education training a year, including two hours on mental health issues.The Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training lists 16 classes with “hate crime” in the title that can be used for continuing education credit, but Preston Draper, the agency’s general counsel, said other training could also include information on hate crimes. He also said he thinks in-depth hate crime instruction would help many officers, but they generally benefit from fewer mandated courses, which allows them to receive more variety in their training. 

In Minnesota, the state legislature changed the law in 2023 to require that every three years, police officers receive an hour of training on hate crimes, including crimes based on gender and sexual orientation. The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office, which covers the state capital St. Paul, hosted a training focused on the LGBTQ community that included identifying and reporting bias crimes, and building trust with victims by using correct names and pronouns. Local law enforcement, victims’ advocates and prosecutors attended the training, which was funded using federal Bureau of Justice Assistance money. 

“Minnesota has a reputation for having a real progressive, sort of safe environment for LGBTQ folks and others,” said assistant county attorney Mark Haase, who organized the training. “But that doesn’t always translate to how people are actually treated by police or by others.” 

Kelley Blair, the executive director of the Diversity Center of Oklahoma, an LGBTQ advocacy nonprofit, said they believe mandatory training for officers on handling hate crime cases would be helpful to build trust with victims and improve data collection. Having officers go through that curriculum regularly is also important as new officers join and society’s understanding of LGBTQ people evolves, they said. 

“We have our own culture, too,” Blair said. “And so if there are people that respect that, it would make a big difference in how people perceive them and trust them.” 

The post A firebombing in Tulsa highlights gaps in Oklahoma hate crime law appeared first on The Frontier.

This summer, I learned that the federal government terminated the state’s multi-million dollar grant for family planning services, including confidential and free or low-cost contraceptives and pregnancy counseling over Oklahoma officials’ unwillingness to provide information on abortion. Multiple outlets reported on the news initially, but before long, the conversation lulled. 

I still had a lot of unanswered questions. What services would be affected? What would this mean in a state with the fourth-highest teen birth rate in the country, and already limited family planning services in rural areas? And how did negotiations between state and federal officials break down? 

Months later, I learned federal officials would redirect the grant to a family planning organization in Missouri to fund a new network of clinics that wouldn’t include county health departments. The change was shocking to me, and I immediately wanted to know more. 

I soon discovered that while county health clinics would be using state money to continue some family planning services, Oklahoma law prevented them from being able to offer services to minors without parental consent. I filed an open records request for emails that showed state officials refused to promote an abortion hotline or take other options that could have helped save the federal funding. 

There’s still more reporting to do. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond is suing the federal government over the loss of funding.  Support from our readers has made my work possible. 

Your contribution to The Frontier can have an even greater impact now through Dec. 31. Donations will be matched by a collaborative fundraising movement called NewsMatch that supports independent, public-service journalism. We can earn up to $50,000 in matched donations by the end of the year. 

The post With your support, The Frontier tracked how Oklahoma lost millions in federal money appeared first on The Frontier.

All-Options is a California-based nonprofit that offers information on reproductive health through the free All-Options Talk Line. The group’s website also includes links to organizations that provide information on pregnancy and adoption, as well as how to access abortion services and abortion pills. 

The state health department briefly changed its policy to include the All-Options Talk Line as a resource, as suggested by the federal government.  But it shifted its stance again more than a month later in May when it informed federal employees that it wouldn’t be able to provide that referral because of an Oklahoma law that makes helping a woman obtain an abortion a felony. The State Department of Health lost the federal funding in June over its refusal to comply.

These details come from more than eight months of communications that the Frontier requested, revealing unsuccessful negotiations between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Oklahoma State Department of Health.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s office sued last week to challenge the grant suspension, arguing that the federal government overstepped the bounds of Title X, a federal family planning program. Federal law says that program funding can’t be used to provide abortion, but the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has added rules that require clinics to provide abortion information and referrals if a patient requests it. 

The State Department of Health will continue to work with the Attorney General’s office to reinstate the federal funding, an agency spokesperson said in a statement.

The state agency is appealing the termination and is using $4.5 million in state money to continue providing family planning services through its health departments. But without Title X funding, minors in Oklahoma have lost access to confidential services at county clinics unless they get a parent’s permission. 

After the federal government suspended funding, county health departments across the state also lost  federally sponsored discounts for family planning drugs and devices, requiring state officials to find other ways to cover the costs, according to the lawsuit. 

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said the agency’s created a committee to review the appeal.

Parker Dockray, the executive director of All-Options, said most callers are already familiar with their range of pregnancy options, and that hotline workers never recommend any option over another. 

Dockray said some clients have been confused about whether abortion is available in their state. Peer counselors can remind patients that they can leave their state for the procedure if needed. But Dockray acknowledged that’s not an option for everyone. 

“Every person should have the right to make that decision for themselves,” Dockray said. “And certainly they should have the right to information about the options, even in a state that has decided they’re going to make one of those options illegal.” 

The federal government announced plans earlier this year to create a similar hotline that would offer comprehensive options counseling to patients across the country, but a spokesperson for the Health and Human Services department said the American Rescue Plan Act dollars that would have funded the project were taken back by Congress. 

Meanwhile, the federal government has sent the State Department of Health’s share of Title X funding to the nonprofit Missouri Family Health Council. The Missouri organization isn’t a direct service provider, but is working to coordinate a network of Oklahoma clinics that can provide confidential services to minors and other family planning resources independent from county departments. 

The Oklahoma Attorney General’s office argues in the lawsuit that the funding transfer has made the state’s appeal “futile.” The lawsuit also claims that the Missouri organization would likely be in violation of state law if it provides abortion counseling in Oklahoma, which could result in criminal charges. 

State guidance that former Attorney General John O’Connor issued last year states that law enforcement should protect free speech, but could consider pursuing cases where a person advised or encouraged a woman to get an abortion, especially if they took “tangible action” to assist them. 

Missouri Family Health Council executive director Michelle Trupiano, whose organization also coordinates Title X services for Missouri, said in October that providers never recommend one pregnancy option over another. Programs can give information about abortion providers, but they can’t take other steps like making an appointment or providing transportation. 

The post Oklahoma refused to share a hotline with abortion information before it lost health funding appeared first on The Frontier.

Meanwhile, the federal government has sent the health department’s share of family planning funding to a Missouri nonprofit to coordinate those services independent from county health departments. 

The State Department of Health is using $4.5 million in state money to continue family planning services through its network of county health departments after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services suspended the agency’s Title X grant funding in May. Minors can still access confidential sexually transmitted infection and HIV testing at state clinics, but birth control and pregnancy testing aren’t available without permission from a parent. 

Oklahoma had the fourth-highest teen birth rate in the nation in 2021, according to the most recent data available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Tulsa youth sexual health nonprofit Amplify has worked to prevent teen pregnancy over the last decade, but its staff worries that county health departments’ loss of federal family planning funding could limit that work. Some clinics that students and health educators have relied on for years have lost the ability to provide confidential services for minors, which could cause confusion for those trying to access resources, said Jenny Briggs, a director at Amplify.

“We know that clinic access, education, conversations with trusted adults that young people love are the biggest contributing factors to young people being able to make healthy choices and plan for their future,” Briggs said. “When we take away one of those key components, I would expect that there would be problems.” 

With $3.3 million in new federal funding, the nonprofit Missouri Family Health Council is working on a plan to administer confidential services for minors and other Title X resources in Oklahoma through a new network. The organization said it plans to apply to manage Oklahoma’s federal funding again next fiscal year too.

Clinics that participate in the federal Title X program provide confidential and low-cost family planning resources like contraceptives, counseling and testing for pregnancy for all ages, including minors. They can’t provide abortions directly, but they are required to offer information and counseling on all options, including abortion, if a pregnant patient requests it. Those guidelines haven’t been changed by the U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, even in states with abortion bans. 

But the State Department of Health says Oklahoma law stops it from providing patients with information on abortion. Oklahoma enacted a trigger law last year that put a near-total abortion ban from 1910 back into effect immediately after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Anyone who advises a woman on how to obtain an abortion can be found guilty of a felony and face a prison sentence of between two and five years.

Erica Rankin-Riley, a spokeswoman for the State Department of Health said the agency supports the work of the Missouri Family Health Council, but disagrees with the federal government’s suspension of funding over its interpretation of state law. The agency is appealing the decision. 

The State Department of Health believes it’s important to continue to provide family planning services with state funding because of its network of county health departments and long history with the Title X program, Rankin-Riley said. But the department is barred from continuing some confidential services by a state law that prevents minors from receiving physical examinations or prescription drugs without parental consent, she said. 

A handful of federal court cases have established that even in states with laws that require parental consent for minors to get contraceptives, federal rules that allow minors to receive confidential services through the Title X program take precedence. But according to Oklahoma law, outside the program, minors can only consent to medical care in specific situations, like if they’re married, emancipated from their parents, or are or have been pregnant. 

A bill that stalled in the House last year would have stopped clinics, including county health departments, from prescribing contraceptives or providing family planning counseling to minors without parental permission. In his presentation, Sen. David Bullard, R-Durant, said he was motivated to author the bill after hearing about students at Langston Hughes Academy in Tulsa who were transported to a Title X-funded clinic, where one received a removable birth control implant without parental consent. 

One of Amplify’s priorities is making sure young adults, school staff and families know how to access the family planning resources they need, now that state health department clinics have more limited services. 

Amplify works closely with Tulsa medical provider Community Health Connection, which has received federal Title X funding separately from the State Department of Health since 2016. This year, it received $216,000 in additional funding to expand family planning and continue confidential services for minors.  

The organization already has about 20,000 active patients and is anticipating several thousand more who could start receiving services in the coming months, said Jim McCarthy, Community Health Connection CEO. The health center’s three medical providers will spend a larger part of their time on offering family planning services to meet increased demand from county health clinics, he said.

Title X providers give patients the information they need to make decisions on their pregnancies, but they never advise one option over others, said Michelle Trupiano, executive director of Missouri Family Health Council. Clinics can provide patients with information on abortion providers, including names, addresses and phone numbers, and they can refer them out of state if necessary, according to program guidance. But they can’t take extra steps like providing transportation or making an appointment for a patient. 

Oklahoma’s congressional delegation wrote a letter in June calling for the Department of Health and Human Services to return Title X funding to the state and accusing federal officials of prioritizing abortion over health care. Several state delegates also introduced legislation banning the federal government from requiring Title X funding recipients to provide information on abortion.

“Oklahoma values every child and has the legal right to stand up for our children after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade,” Lankford said in an emailed statement. “The Biden administration remains obsessed with increasing the number of abortions in America and finding ways to force taxpayers to pay for abortion or punish individuals who do not support their pro-abortion stance.” 

Then-Attorney General John O’Connor issued guidance last year encouraging law enforcement to protect free speech when enforcing Oklahoma’s abortion ban. He wrote that “mere advocacy” is protected by law, but law enforcement could consider pursuing cases where a person advised or encouraged a woman to get an abortion, especially if they took “tangible action” to help access the procedure. Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who took office in January, is working on updated guidance, but it’s unclear when it will be released, an agency spokesman said.

There’s a political climate in Oklahoma of not wanting the federal government to interfere with state politics, said Sen. Carri Hicks, D-Oklahoma City, a member of the Senate Health and Human Services committee. Despite high rates of infant and maternal mortality, she said she’s not optimistic that state leaders will adopt policies that will allow the State Department of Health to reclaim federal funding for next fiscal year. 

“I would say it’s disappointing more than anything, because again, we have plenty of data, an overwhelming amount of data that is showing that what we’re doing is trending in the wrong direction,” Hicks said. “And yet, we’re continuing to do those very same things year over year and double down on what I consider failed policy.” 

The post Without federal funding, Oklahoma minors lost access to confidential birth control and other family planning services at county clinics appeared first on The Frontier.

Dr. Rebecca Lewis, a family physician practicing obstetrics at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center, and her patients were left to decide between inducing delivery early, or waiting until the baby died in the womb or the patient went into septic shock. 

The patient wasn’t facing medical complications, but they decided to start labor early, which Lewis said she believes prevented the woman from experiencing the further psychological harm of a potential life-threatening emergency. 

“If that came in tonight, would I be able to make that same decision legally?” Lewis said. “It’s still such a gray area.” 

The Oklahoma Supreme Court has ruled twice in recent months to overturn state laws that only allow for abortions during life-threatening medical emergencies, stating that requiring doctors to wait doesn’t serve a compelling state interest.

But an Oklahoma law from 1910 that outlaws most abortions is still in effect. That law says abortions are allowed only when necessary to preserve a mother’s life. Otherwise, medical professionals can be charged with a felony and face up to five years in prison.  But doctors still aren’t certain when they can perform the procedure. Other states that have banned most abortions including Utah, Georgia and Louisiana have laws with more specific language, permitting terminating a pregnancy  to prevent serious, irreversible damage to a life-sustaining organ, but Oklahoma’s law contains no specifics or clear definitions.

The Frontier interviewed three medical providers who said a lack of consensus on how to interpret the recent state court rulings makes it difficult to make decisions while treating patients. 

Lewis said many of the doctors she knows interpret the law to mean that abortion is appropriate if the mother’s life will be at risk in the next 24 hours, but that leaves out lots of situations that could be detrimental to patients’ health and wellbeing. 

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said before the most recent state Supreme Court ruling in May that doctors should be given “substantial leeway” in deciding when abortion is appropriate. 

Phil Bacharach, a spokesperson for Drummond’s office, said in an email that staff are reviewing and potentially updating guidance based on the most recent Supreme Court decision, and they could include definitions for preserving the life of a mother. 

Neither the Oklahoma Board of Medical Licensure and Supervision or the Oklahoma State Board of Osteopathic Examiners have guidance published on their websites based on the most recent state court rulings, though Board of Osteopathic Examiners executive director Michael Leake said he’s working to develop some.  

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ official position is that abortions can be medically necessary. The organization opposes efforts to impede access or criminalize health care providers. But Molly Meegan, general counsel for ACOG said doctors can only follow the organizations’ guidance as far as state laws will allow.  

ACOG can’t offer individual doctors legal advice, but Meegan said the organization encourages hospital administrators to help doctors navigate their work. 

“A lot of institutions haven’t provided enough guidance,” Meegan said. “Most doctors are operating in what feels like a very scary and chaotic environment.” 

Oklahoma Call for Reproductive Justice, an abortion access group, was the plaintiff in two lawsuits that struck down narrow exceptions for medically necessary abortions in the state. Board member Priya Desai said the organization has tried to push back on what they see as the highest impact laws, and they saw similar bans in states like Texas cause spikes in out-of-state abortions. 

The organization worked together with Physicians for Human Rights and the Center for Reproductive Rights on a study of Oklahoma hospitals, which found that almost none have clear policies on when to perform emergency abortions. 

Desai said her group believes that hospitals should outline clear emergency abortion policies for doctors, but she thinks the liability associated might prevent some from creating them.

Oklahoma City OB-GYN Dr. Dana Stone asked that her hospital not be named because she isn’t authorized to speak on the organization’s behalf. She said hospital attorneys created broad guidelines for doctors after Roe v. Wade was overturned. But black-and-white rules often don’t work for a subject as gray as medicine, she said. 

At her facility, Stone said decisions to perform a medically necessary abortion are made with a team that includes an anesthesiologist, a nurse and other hospital staff. Team members have always been able to refuse to participate in the procedure for any reason.

But if a team member expresses concerns for a legal reason, it often halts medical plans for a patient, Stone said. 

Lewis, the physician from Enid, said she doesn’t perform abortions herself, but if she believes one is necessary, she refers the patient to a gynecologist at her hospital. She said hospital administrators have clarified that doctors’ priority should be saving the life of the mother when they can, which she said has been clearer guidance than some hospitals. 

Dr. William Po, an OB-GYN who also serves as the vice chair of Oklahoma’s ACOG section, asked that his hospital not be named because he wasn’t authorized to speak on its behalf. Po said his hospital hasn’t given doctors guidelines to interpret the law, and administrators have also said that they’d give physicians legal support in a civil case but not if they face criminal charges. 

In cases where he believes an abortion is medically necessary, he will refer patients to a medical professional outside the facility, where they receive extra counseling before they decide whether to end the pregnancy. 

The most helpful outcome would be for legislators to write clearer laws outlining what doctors can and can’t do, Po said. 

“Medical standard of care is not being done when you’re faced with substantial criminal penalties,” Po said. “We all want to do the right thing. We all want to follow the law. We all want to save our patients and give good medicine. And when you have a law with such a blanket statement, it’s difficult to navigate those waters.” 

The post After court rulings, Oklahoma doctors are still confused about when abortion is legal to save a patient’s life appeared first on The Frontier.

Oklahoma saw 136 overdose deaths from fentanyl in 2020, a nearly 152 percent increase over the previous year, according to preliminary Bureau of Narcotics data. Last year was a record year for fatal drug overdoses in Oklahoma — 1,002 people died, exceeding the previous high of 883 deaths in 2019.

Oklahoma’s increase in deaths echoes a trend that saw fatal overdoses grow by 29.4 percent nationwide between December 2019 and December 2020, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overdose deaths in Oklahoma increased by 21.8 percent over the same period, according to the report.

The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics began noticing a growing number of fentanyl deaths in May 2020, when investigators were alerted to four overdoses over a period of about 72 hours, said Mark Woodward, a spokesman for the agency. 

Since then, OBN has arrested nine people who have been charged with first-degree murder in connection to deaths from counterfeit oxycodone pills, as well as trafficking and possession in some cases. 

Some dealers who sold fentanyl-laced pills didn’t know they were counterfeit, Woodward said. 

“In many cases, some of the people who were arrested (were) friends of the ones who died.” he said. “They weren’t strange dealers knowingly pushing a deadly drug on the streets.”

Counterfeit oxycodone pills first began surfacing in Oklahoma around 2014, Woodward said. The pills are manufactured by drug cartels and are often blue in color and stamped to look like a 30-milligram dose of oxycodone. The counterfeit pills are frequently cut with fentanyl, a cheap, potent drug that is much more potent than morphine. 

OBN’s Anti-Heroin Task Force has been investigating nearly two dozen deaths over the past 15 months across the state tied to counterfeit oxycodone. There are likely even more deaths that have gone unreported or that have been prevented with Narcan, Woodward said. While pills are the most common form of distribution, fentanyl is also showing up in methamphetamine and heroin in the state, he said. 

Earlier this month, an OBN investigation led to the arrest of a suspected Oklahoma City drug trafficker and the seizure of about 7,900 fentanyl pills worth nearly $250,000. Investigators believe the man was a major supplier of counterfeit pills in the state. 

The Oklahoma City Police Department has seen an increase in drug possession and distribution arrests over the past year, largely due to counterfeit oxycodone pills, agency spokesman Gary Knight said in an email. According to 2021 patrol records Knight provided to The Frontier, narcotics-related arrests climbed from 102 in January to 148 arrests in April — a peak for the year so far. 

Jack Thorp, district attorney for Wagoner, Adair, Cherokee, Sequoyah counties, said he’s seen an uptick in cases involving fentanyl-laced drugs. Thorp first became aware of fentanyl in Oklahoma four or five years ago, but said current case levels are the highest he’s seen. 

Out of 19 drug-related deaths in Thorp’s district where an autopsy was performed since June 2020, 11 deaths were caused by methamphetamine, and seven were fentanyl-related, according to data provided to The Frontier by Thorp. In many cases, dealers cut drugs with fentanyl to increase their profit margins, Thorp said. 

Although most opioid-related deaths have trended downward in Oklahoma since 2015, methamphetamine and fentanyl have caused an overall increase in overdoses, said Jeff Dismukes, spokesman for the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.

He believes the coronavirus pandemic is partly to blame for last year’s increase in deaths because overdoses often occur in isolation. People also have been less likely to enter residential substance abuse treatments programs during the pandemic, he said.

The post Counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl are driving a spike in Oklahoma deaths appeared first on The Frontier.

Chilocco alumni only knew of 10 graves at the school when they began taking care of the site more than 20 years ago, but they’ve since uncovered 57 additional burials that occurred between 1884 to 1937 — all unmarked. 

“It is a sacred ground, and it should be treated as such and respected as such, particularly when you know that a lot of the people who are buried there are former Chilocco students, from the very school that we call home,” said Jim Baker, president of the school’s national alumni association. 

The graveyard at the former federally-funded school is likely to become part of a nationwide Department of the Interior investigation aimed at locating the unmarked graves of native students at boarding schools. 

In June, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced a new inquiry into the legacy of Native American boarding schools in the United States after the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves in Canada. 

Including Chilocco, Oklahoma has 83 former and current Indian boarding school sites, more than any other state, according to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. 

Many of the schools were operated by religious groups and received funding from the federal government as part of systemic efforts to dissolve Native American cultures and languages.

Ahead of the federal investigation, boarding school alumni, tribal leaders and activists described a complicated relationship between tribes and former schools, and the impact the institutions will continue to have on the state’s Native American communities even after the investigation is complete. 

Students who died at boarding schools didn’t receive proper burials in accordance with tribal traditions, said Gordon Yellowman, director of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes’ language and culture program.

“(Tribal members) were never ever given the opportunity to do what we have to do when a child dies,” Yellowman said. “They were never given the love and the dignity that they deserve, and respect that they deserve.” 

Honoring the dead now falls to school alumni 

For nearly 100 years, the Chilocco school housed Native students from more than 127 tribes from across the Western United States.

The Chilocco National Alumni Association started maintaining the school cemetery in the late 1990s after it had been neglected for decades. Jim Baker graduated from the school in 1960. He was also the school’s first alumnus to serve as superintendent from 1973 to 1978. The alumni association’s desire to honor dead students has compelled the group to maintain the cemetery, he said. 

Jim and his wife Charmain Baker, who is also a former Chilocco student, have found dozens of graves at the school that date between 1884 to 1937 through archival research and the use of radar. Originally, none of the school’s graves were marked.

Most of the people buried in the graveyard were Chilocco students, although one grave belongs to the child of a faculty member.

Many of the students buried at Chilocco were orphans who had no one to claim their bodies after they died, Jim Baker said. Even if students did have family, transportation was often too slow to ensure the body could be brought home in time to preserve it, leading to a burial at the school.

Scattered records have made the process to identify graves even more complex.

Of the 67 graves they’ve identified at the school, eight remain nameless. Charmain Baker is troubled that 50 people buried at the school have unknown causes of death. Several students died from outbreaks of infectious diseases like the 1918 influenza pandemic, she said. 

While she said she knows the records are “sketchy,” she wonders if authorities deemed the truth about some of the deaths too morbid to make public. 

“We can’t say there were no kids that were killed,” Charmain said. “We just don’t know.”

A discovery in Canada sparks new scrutiny 

The unmarked graves of as many as 751 people, mainly Indigenous children, were uncovered in June at a former boarding school in Saskatchewan. Another 375 graves have been discovered in British Columbia spread across the former sites of the Kamloops  and Kuper Island residential schools.  

The U.S. investigation into unmarked graves will include identifying and collecting records related to the federal government’s oversight of boarding schools and consulting with tribes to discuss ways to protect burial sites.

Yellowman said though there were originally several boarding schools both operated by the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes and on tribal land, many students also attended off-reservation schools like Chilocco. Several of the Cheyenne and Arapaho schools were consolidated in the early 1900s, and more tribal students transferred to Chilocco. 

Though there were some boarding school success stories, Yellowman said a lot of intergenerational trauma also stemmed from schools like Chilocco. He described the harsh punishments administrators at many schools doled out for behavior like speaking Native languages, and the stifling effect these had on Native culture. Yellowman never learned more than basic words in the Cheyenne language because his grandmother — who attended Concho Indian Boarding School near El Reno — emphasized the importance of speaking English. 

Through the 1960s and 1970s, changing social conditions posed a threat to Native American boarding schools, and Chilocco was no exception. Facing a host of issues, including declining enrollment and a lack of federal funding, the school shuttered in 1980. 

The quality of academic programs at Chilocco improved and students had more freedom and better living conditions in later years of the school’s history, according to accounts collected by the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program. Jim Baker described fond memories at Chilocco, and the countless amenities it once housed, including a thriving agricultural program and numerous facilities for sports. He was sad to see the school close, he said. 

“When you get too good of a thing going, it makes people jealous,” he said. 

During his time as superintendent, Jim Baker was known for working in the fields with students who participated in the school’s agricultural program. Though the crops in the fields are now dominated by weeds, Jim was again the first to start work on a recent visit, cutting the school’s grass on a riding lawn mower and eventually working his way to the school’s gravesite. 

The cemetery is a small, unassuming plot of land about half a mile off the main campus, with bricks laid in the ground as headstones, and memorial crosses leaning against the fence. For years, Jim and Charmain Baker have led efforts to maintain it and locate and identify graves. They’ve also cobbled together funding from a patchwork of donors and grants to honor the school’s dead. 

The Chilocco cemetery is now owned by the Kaw Nation, a federally recognized tribe with about 3,100 enrolled members headquartered in Kay County. A memorial for the dead is a tall block of stone with 67 entries for those buried engraved on it — though many are missing names, tribes and years of burial. The engravings are surrounded by child-sized hand and footprints. 

The Kaw Nation received $40,000 from the MICA Group’s Cultural Resource Fund to pay for the memorial and a new fence around the cemetery. 

One former student who owns a flower shop provides a yearly floral arrangement for the memorial.

A $3,100 grant from ConocoPhillips funded the construction of the fence around the cemetery. Workers using radar to build the fence found “anomalies” at the site — possibly dead animals or more unmarked graves. Alumni eventually hope to find enough funds to pay for another radar screening, potentially coordinating with the Kaw Nation or other entities. 

New hope for answers about unmarked graves

Native groups hope the new federal inquiry will spark a reckoning on the long-lasting harms of the United States’ boarding school system. 

Community activists Redbear and Soulowla Williams, who are from the Seminole Nation near Bowlegs, are helping organize an honor walk for Native American children who died at residential schools in Oklahoma  but haven’t yet been found. They said they believe there could be a local discovery of unmarked graves as large as the discovery of hundreds in Canada. 

“Those babies are an awakening,” Soulowla Williams said. “And right here, Oklahoma is going to get a rude awakening when they start finding bodies here.” 

The 30-mile walk will start on July 31 at the Mekusukey Mission in Seminole and end at St. Gregory’s University in Shawnee, the successor institution to Sacred Heart, a former Native American boarding school in Pottawatomie County. 

Tribal leaders have attempted to launch new investigations into unmarked graves at boarding schools for decades to no avail, Soulowla Williams said, which has been frustrating for families with lost loved ones. 

Yellowman said he believes the Department of the Interior investigation is needed to account for the government’s wrongs, and it should include a search for graves at all former boarding schools in Oklahoma. 

Identifying and sending any remains that are found back to the tribes would be an intensive process, and Yellowman believes the decision whether to do so would have to be made further down the line. But one of the top priorities should be providing proper burials, he said.

Jim Baker said he believes there are still undiscovered burial sites at Chilocco. He welcomes the Department of the Interior investigation, which he hopes will uncover the exact number of people buried at the school and more information about when they died. 

Ultimately, he wants the Department of the Interior to play a bigger role in upkeep at Chilocco.

“My hope is that they will take ownership of the cemeteries, particularly at these closed, off-reservation boarding schools … or maybe responsibility for it becoming abandoned, and provide the necessary resources to continue to maintain these cemeteries respectfully,” he said. 

Yellowman hopes the federal government will face some consequences of its actions as a result of the investigation, though he’s unsure what form they’ll take. He’d also like to see the United States acknowledge responsibility for the deaths of Indigenous students. 

But he’s hesitant to say the discoveries of remains will allow for much emotional healing.

“It’s not coming to a closure because we forgive but we never forget,” he said.

The post At one former Native American school in Oklahoma, honoring the dead now falls to alumni appeared first on The Frontier.

Angered by a series of racist incidents on campus, more than 100 students occupied an administration building at OU’s Norman campus for three days in February 2020. One of their demands was the creation of a mandatory diversity, equity and inclusion class for all students. 

The students camped out in the hallways and watched movies. Some even declared a hunger strike. 

Jamelia Reed, co-director of the campus group Black Emergency Response Team, was one of the leaders of the sit-in. The group initiated the protest to push for measures increasing cultural competency on campus after university students appeared in blackface on social media, among other incidents. 

“We see time and time again, with these acts of racism and bigotry, that these events are caused by a lack of education,” Reed said. “If you were to look at every single apology letter, you’d find that it was a miscalculation or misguidance.” 

Administrators eventually gave in to most of the students’ demands and developed a class called Gateway to Belonging that was set to launch in Fall 2021. The course includes lessons on understanding diverse perspectives, building an intercultural awareness and learning the sources of prejudice and discrimination, according to the OU website. 

But the contents of the class have been challenged by House Bill 1775, a new state law that bans required diversity training at state schools. The law also forbids Oklahoma schools from teaching that one race is superior to another, or teaching that anyone is “inherently racist, sexist or oppressive” because of their race.

The University of Oklahoma has moved to make the diversity class optional for students in response to the new law. Of the state’s public colleges and universities, The Frontier was only able to confirm that OU and Oklahoma State University had mandatory student diversity training that has now been made optional in response to HB 1775. Several other state schools said they will evaluate courses and orientation materials to gauge the bill’s effect on them.  

Critics of the new law say it will have a chilling effect on public discourse at Oklahoma schools and universities and stamp out efforts to make campuses more welcoming for marginalized groups. 

 Gateway to Belonging was originally slated as a required course, but OU officials will now allow students to choose among Gateway to Belonging and two other classes after the state adopted HB 1775. In a May 7 email, University of Oklahoma President Joseph Harroz Jr. wrote two additional courses — called Global Perspectives and Engagement, and Ethical Leadership Development — will be offered in addition to the Gateway to Belonging course to fulfill course requirements. 

Reed said by limiting discussion of race and gender, the new law will make OU’s campus even more hostile toward minority students. 

Gateway to Belonging will be offered in the fall 2021 semester as a pilot, and the other two courses will be offered in later semesters, OU spokesperson Kesha Keith said in an email.

Together, the three courses focus on critical thinking, cultural fluency, civil discourse, citizenship and community engagement, the email said. 

A few weeks after the protest, history professor Kathleen Brosnan was the subject of campus backlash after she repeatedly used a racial slur in class while reading aloud from a historical document. Gaylord professor Peter Gade compared the same racial slur to the phrase “OK, boomer,” causing BERT members to call for a mandatory equity training for faculty and staff. The faculty training hasn’t been affected by the new law. 

OU students have been required to complete a similar diversity training since 2015, the year members of the university’s Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter were recorded singing a racist chant on a date party bus. That training also has been made optional as a result of HB 1775. 

Harroz wrote in the May 7 email to students and faculty that though the training is no longer a requirement for students, they’re still encouraged to take it. He also wrote that all university employees, including student employees, are required to complete the training, as well as other “necessary and essential” trainings, like sexual harassment and workplace safety training. 

“Our students’ success in making a difference in the lives of others depends upon their ability to engage with the broader world in a way that is understanding of all people and perspectives,” Harroz wrote in the email. “With our available diversity, equity and inclusion training and the First-Year Experience – coupled with the unparalleled OU experience – it’s our belief that our students will be better prepared for a life of meaning and positive impact.”

OU’s diversity training had its share of controversy even before HB 1775 was introduced. 

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a conservative nonprofit that advocates for freedom of speech on college campuses, claims OU’s mandatory diversity training breached students’ First Amendment rights by requiring them to express agreement with the university’s views on transgender issues. 

FIRE attorney Adam Steinbaugh said that while the group took issue with how the training was structured, it does not support laws like HB 1775. The group believes the law and similar legislation that other states have adopted or advanced will have a “chilling” effect on academic freedom on college campuses.  

Some institutions will be overly cautious in their interpretation of the bill’s definition of “training,” pushing them to evaluate classes to ensure they comply with the law. This is problematic because it will limit discussions on race, ethnicity and other diversity issues, he said. 

Reed said that although activists at OU were frustrated by HB 1775, they weren’t surprised it passed in Oklahoma. They and other BERT members didn’t do much advocacy against it, because they believed efforts to stop it from being signed by Gov. Kevin Stitt were hopeless. 

“I don’t think it’s surprising,” Reed said. “I think it’s honestly disappointing when you say you want to progress, you want to see change, but the only change you want to see is the progression of oppression against people who need it. And … I think it’s going to cause further divide when you’re not allowing people to understand the true history.” 

Nicole McAfee, ACLU of Oklahoma director of policy and advocacy, said there has historically been much to be desired in diversity education across the state. 

She believes many lawmakers— including former educators and administrators — support the bill out of a lack of understanding of critical race theory. 

The ACLU believes the law threatens free speech in Oklahoma classrooms as well as makes marginalized groups feel less welcome. 

Because of the bill’s vague wording, its impact still isn’t completely clear, McAfee said. While the bill doesn’t explicitly identify an impact to higher education curriculum, she said some institutions are already questioning what is or isn’t relevant to the bill and erring on the side of limited race, gender and sexuality education. She said the legislation could also affect sexual misconduct training, like OU’s Step In, Speak Out, on college campuses — which are often hotspots for sexual violence. 

“I think we do a disservice to our student bodies, to our classrooms, but also to the students as they go out into the world, when we create scenarios where they’re unable to participate in these trainings and have these conversations,” McAfee said. 

The post OU students fought for diversity education after a string of racist campus incidents, but a new state law makes it optional appeared first on The Frontier.

Christopher Owen was good friends with Tim Colwell, but he knew Colwell also had plenty of other close relationships. 

“There were probably 100 people who thought of Tim as a close friend,” Owen said. “And I think that’s very unusual. He just made it his business to be closely connected with people and be very interested in being involved in people’s lives. He was giving of himself, which is a remarkable trait.” 

This was evident from Owen’s first interaction with Colwell, a Tulsa public relations professional, about 20 years ago, when Owen said he was first entering a position as the communications director of a church in downtown Tulsa. Owen said he found a piece in a local newspaper listing recipients of local awards. Colwell’s name was part of the list, identified as PR director of Parker Drilling — which Owen said was a fairly large company in Tulsa at the time. 

Owen also worked in public relations, so he reached out to Colwell for professional advice. Colwell invited Owen to lunch and soon became a mentor to him. 

“Later, particularly after he died, I found that that was just a common thing, that he would just take on friendships and relationships like that,” Owen said. “He was very generous with his time in that way.” 

Colwell was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa in 1952, according to his obituary. His father died in a car accident before his birth. His mother raised him on her own while working as town postmaster in Livermore, Iowa.

Colwell also became a single parent in 2000 after his first wife Debbie died one week before their son Matthew turned 15. 

He married his second wife Patty in 2010 and the two built a “great, little empty-nest family,” Owen said. 

As a longtime resident of Tulsa, Colwell worked tirelessly for the community.  

He became the first and only public relations director for the City of Faith at Oral Roberts University in 1982, then began working for Parker Drilling Company in 1985. 

When Parker Drilling relocated to Houston, Colwell and Debbie started their own company —  Colwell and Colwell, PR and Marketing. The couple also started a greeting card company called The Queen of Cards, which was distributed nationally. 

Colwell started a new job in public relations for The Williams Companies Inc. in 2007, where he worked until his retirement in 2018. 

He also served as the president of the Downtown Tulsa Rotary Club in 2007. During his tenure there, he had a goal of growing the group to 500 members, which he was able to accomplish. 

Colwell had a good sense of humor and was rarely seen without a smile. Owen attended First Methodist Church with Colwell for a number of years, and said Colwell’s faith was extremely important to him. 

“If you were out to lunch with Tim, you’re always going to have a blessing before the meal,” Owen said. “But he would say ‘let’s have an open-eyed prayer’ because he didn’t want to embarrass anybody.” 

Colwell was grilling steaks for his family on Christmas Eve 2020 but had to go to the emergency room later that day, sick with COVID-19. 

Colwell died Jan. 14 at age 68. His family arranged a funeral for him on Jan. 21. 

“I felt like in the time of year that he died, the fact that hardly anyone could go to his funeral when they finally had one,” Colwell said, “I’m not sure that he really got the kind of memorial that he would have gotten, had he died at another time.”

The post Oklahomans We’ve Lost: A good friend and civic leader appeared first on The Frontier.