Amber Boyer spent early mornings last spring crawling out of her bedroom window and into her garage to make breakfast and gather medications for her then 14-year-old son Davin. 

She’d strap on a rugby-style helmet to protect her head and hair when she went back inside her Kay County home to give Davin his meals. Davin has autism and a speech delay. For the last year, he’s had increasingly aggressive behaviors, Boyer said. 

Davin started complaining about headaches in 2022. He’d need to be sedated for any medical testing to figure out why the headaches were happening. But few doctors in the state do sedation before a procedure like an MRI, Boyer said. Finding care was nearly impossible. 

Davin’s behaviors grew increasingly aggressive as his headaches continued. He was biting, pulling hair and breaking doors. By early 2023, Davin was suspended for several days from his public school. He eventually refused to attend school in person. Boyer took off almost four weeks from work to stay home with him as she looked for treatment. When Davin became a serious risk to himself or others, she took him to the emergency room. He visited hospital emergency rooms seven times in six months.  

As Davin’s behaviors escalated, Boyer moved her teenage daughter to her parents’ home, and she moved into the garage, eventually taking medical leave from work. She spent her days making calls to mental health providers, doctors, her attorney, the local school district and the Oklahoma Autism Network, trying to find someone who could help. 

Boyer could only stay inside her house at night while they both slept — her behind a steel-plated door. From the garage, she watched Davin through cameras inside the house to make sure he was safe. 

Davin has been on Oklahoma’s waiting list for developmental disability services for around a decade. Boyer has relied on private insurance and Oklahoma’s Medicaid program to help pay for his care in the meantime.

Struggling to find care is common for parents with children who have dual needs, or an intellectual or developmental disability and a mental or behavioral health challenge. 

Demand for mental and behavioral health care has spiked in recent years amid a staffing shortage, leaving some kids with complex needs behind as providers pick and choose which clients they can take on. The state has ramped up some spending on mental health care and developmental disability services but the investments haven’t been enough to allow providers to expand or feel ready to accept more youth with dual needs, officials say. 

Without better access to care, advocates say children with dual needs are more likely to end up involved with the child welfare or criminal justice system, or be sent to costly out-of-state facilities away from their families. In the 2023 fiscal year, Oklahoma spent over $5 million to send 49 kids out of state for treatment, according to data from the Oklahoma Health Care Authority. Five years ago, the state only paid for two kids to leave for treatment. Some children are likely left out of those numbers.

“It’s kind of this perfect storm, with those with a dual diagnosis in the middle of it,” said Wanda Felty, an advocate who has worked for years to get individuals with disabilities connected to state services. 

Parents turn to schools that lack resources

Oklahoma has had limited mental and behavioral health services available for youth for decades. 

Only nine counties in Oklahoma have any child and adolescent psychiatrists, according to 2022 maps from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. When a child has a complex need in addition to mental or behavioral health challenges, the pool of outpatient and inpatient providers shrinks even more. 

To fill these gaps, communities rely on public schools to provide significant on-site services to kids. But special education programs are often short-staffed and under-funded. This means less of the consistent, community-based care that can play a role in keeping children from needing inpatient services or residential treatment for issues later on.

Davin’s public school was able to provide him some speech therapy throughout the years but struggled to hire the right professionals in the rural area, Boyer said. 

The school district struggled to keep up as Davin’s care needs escalated, she said. One special education teacher threatened to file assault charges against him. 

By May 2023, Davin hadn’t been to school in about two months. Two special education teachers from the school — who Davin hadn’t met before — tried to come to Boyer’s home to provide lessons. Occasionally these classes went well, but most of the time, Boyer said, Davin was too aggressive. 

Sara Coffey, a child psychiatry consultant to the state’s child welfare department and director of child and adolescent psychiatry for Oklahoma State University, frequently sees families with children who didn’t receive adequate day-to-day services like speech therapy and have started to have other mental or behavioral health issues. 

“That’s whenever they come to see me — when it gets to a point where the child, quite frankly, is older and might be larger, and there’s increased safety concerns,” Coffey said. “But it’s often something that’s been going on for years that we didn’t have the appropriate interventions and supports in place for.”

Kids with dual needs often need more than just crisis care

Getting services early can be critical to improving a child’s stability and future independence, according to the American Psychiatric Association. Problems can become more serious when families can’t find adequate levels of care in schools or the community.

Parents may take kids who are in crisis to emergency rooms, where they may be funneled to a short-stay, inpatient treatment provider if a bed is available. Longer-term, residential treatment for kids with complex needs is almost nonexistent in the state, officials said.

When Davin was home full-time, Boyer reached out to Oklahoma Human Services’ developmental disability services office but never heard back, she said. She called an autism research and advocacy organization.

The organization wanted to help, Boyer said, but the resources her son needed either didn’t exist or weren’t accessible. 

“They actually told me, once I figured something out, to call back and report to them what I was able to get accomplished so that they could help other parents,” Boyer said. 

Last June, Boyer took Davin to another emergency room in Oklahoma City to get help. Even though Davin was admitted for several days and a doctor adjusted the psychiatric medications meant to manage his behaviors, Davin was discharged without any new diagnosis or medical testing, Boyer said. The hospital said to follow up with a psychiatrist and wrote a letter saying Davin needed long-term placement. 

Many crisis interventions are short term, said RoseAnn Duplan, a policy specialist with the Oklahoma Disability Law Center. Kids are kept until they are stabilized and then they are sent home. There are few supports for families, Duplan said, so children can deteriorate quickly. 

“I think in all of these cases, had there been appropriate community-based mental health treatment for these kids to begin with, there’s a really good chance we would never have got to the level of needing inpatient care,” Duplan said.

A lack of providers equipped for complex needs

People with intellectual or developmental disabilities have co-occurring psychiatric conditions at rates that can exceed the general population, including ADHD, depression and anxiety, according to the National Association for the Dually Diagnosed.

But the state’s system has been set up to treat psychiatric needs separately from developmental disabilities, said Traylor Rains, the state’s Medicaid director. It takes highly trained clinicians to figure out where behaviors are coming from when those conditions are intertwined, he said. 

There aren’t enough of these specialists in the state to treat kids with co-occurring developmental disabilities and mental or behavioral health needs, providers said. 

Providers have to seek outside resources to access specific training on working with children with developmental disabilities, which can be expensive and time consuming, said Whitney Downie, chief program officer for Family and Children’s Services in Tulsa.

Health care facilities have to consider physical space for new clients and whether a new client will mix well with other patients, providers told The Frontier. Providers also must often adhere to strict staff-to-patient ratios. 

But a staffing shortage has plagued mental health providers in the state for years. 

If providers feel like their staff aren’t trained to handle a client’s behavior, especially if those behaviors are deemed aggressive, and still provide effective treatment, they’ll decline the patient, said Matthew Spencer, a chief clinical officer with Grand Mental Health in northeast Oklahoma. 

Grand Mental Health provides outpatient therapy and can serve kids with developmental disabilities, but only if patients have the cognitive ability to participate in therapy and benefit from it, Spencer said. If not, Grand Mental Health will refer them to a different provider, he said. 

Oklahoma has a mix of providers that do inpatient and outpatient services, but they don’t always accept kids with dual needs. Integris and SSM Health hospital systems in Oklahoma City have specialized psychiatric units for youth with developmental disabilities. The state has its own hospital in Norman that can accept kids with dual needs if they have capacity to benefit from treatment. The state also contracts with a few other providers that have longer-term programs, though not all accept kids with developmental disabilities. Another facility in Tulsa serves these youth in a residential setting, but only if they are in state custody. 

Leaders from multiple state agencies say they have asked providers across the country to come to Oklahoma or for existing providers to expand their services, but most decline, citing concerns with staffing, training and funding. 

Kids with dual needs can be more expensive to care for because of increased staffing and additional therapies. Low reimbursement rates from the state’s Medicaid program make it difficult for Oklahoma providers to expand services, especially longer-term, residential-style services. 

“Everybody knows that it’s an underserved population, and I think everybody wants to do all they can or more than they’re doing now,” said Eric Sachau, director of administrative services for Parkside Psychiatric Hospital in Tulsa. “The things that will open the doors to that are going to be a long list of things, and reimbursement is one of them.” 

In 2022, lawmakers approved $2 million in incentives to persuade providers to accept more high-needs kids, including those with developmental disabilities. Providers would get a minimum $20,000 for accepting children with complex needs and another $10,000 if a child showed progress. 

But by October of last year, only about 10% of funds had been used by five providers for eight kids, according to the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. One of the providers doesn’t accept kids with developmental disabilities and another has since closed down. 

Effective in-patient treatment is increasingly only accessible out of state for some kids with complex needs. 

Boyer found an out-of-state facility that could accept Davin in August with the help of a therapist from Grand Mental Health. It’s a psychiatric residential treatment facility with onsite nurses, behavioral therapy technicians and a daily special education program with multiple teachers. His old school district is paying about $40,000 a month for the facility, Boyer said. 

The staff are highly trained and Davin’s behaviors have decreased significantly, Boyer said. 

He’s answering questions in school and doing homework, things Boyer said she’d never seen him do before. Someone from the state’s developmental disability services office got in touch with Boyer and is keeping an eye on Davin’s case to make sure there are services for him when he comes home. 

Coming Home 

To address the state’s mental health needs, the Oklahoma Legislature has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the last few years in state funds and federal pandemic relief dollars to expand and build new mental health facilities for adults and children, increase payment rates to developmental disability providers and build the education pipeline for health care workers. 

One of the new facilities is a behavioral health hospital for youth, which should open in Oklahoma City under the OU Health umbrella in late 2026. The $140-million facility will have 72 beds for short- and long-term inpatient stays, an outpatient program and a partial hospitalization program, said Randy Dowell, chief executive officer of the University Hospitals Authority and Trust. 

The facility will be connected to the Oklahoma Children’s Hospital, so patients will have access to medical doctors. Oklahoma Human Services also has a foster care program available, and the facility will have a connection with the Child Study Center, a program on the campus that serves kids with developmental disabilities and trains health care providers, Dowell said. 

The success of the program will depend on staffing and whether Oklahoma kids with high needs are accepted over out-of-state patients for higher reimbursement rates. 

 “I think it’s a great start,” Dowell said. “I don’t know that it solves all the needs for the state of Oklahoma, but it definitely goes a long way in allowing us to have kids treated in the state.” 

Boyer is back at work but living with her parents and daughter while she repairs her home using a loan and help from her church to cover costs. She’s working on writing a resource book to help other parents before they get to the point she did. 

Boyer and her daughter visit Davin every week. His treatment care team has started talking about integrating Davin back home. He’ll be able to start home visits soon. 

“It’s just been really difficult. He’s pulled my hair. He’s cracked my ribs and bit me. I was afraid to get close. Now I don't feel like that at all,” Boyer said. “He’s excited to see us and we’re so excited to see him. And we have a great visit every weekend.” 

The post Oklahoma sends a growing number of kids with complex needs out of state for treatment appeared first on The Frontier.

The more people who read our stories, the easier it is to create that impact. Unfortunately, like every media company, social media is no longer a reliable way to reach new readers, putting us in the position of seeking new ways to promote our journalism.

So this year we’re launching The Frontier Texting Club. You sign up by texting “Frontier” to 918-393-7284 and you’ll receive an update every time we post a new story. You can also sign up on the below form.

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A special legislative session called by Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt will begin on Monday. Stitt hopes lawmakers will pass a quarter-cent income tax cut, though that appears unlikely. 

Leadership in the Oklahoma House of Representatives has indicated they’ll pass the cut, calling it another step toward leading Oklahoma to zero income tax, but the Senate’s leader says Stitt hasn’t shown a detailed plan, and they won’t vote in favor. Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat told The Frontier lawmakers could opt to take up the tax cut during the regular session, which starts Feb. 5.

Oklahoma’s current top income tax rate is 4.75%. Stitt’s proposed cut would drop the top rate to 4.5%. The Oklahoma Legislature last passed an across-the-board quarter-percent tax cut in 2021. 

On this episode of Listen Frontier, we talk to House Speaker Charles McCall and Treat to get their takes on the upcoming special session. 

Treat told The Frontier he wasn’t “cutting off the possibility” of taking up the cut during the regular session.

“We’re just cutting the possibility of wasting taxpayer dollars in the meantime,” he said, noting it costs $20,000 a day to keep the full Senate in session and “double that” for the House of Representatives.

“We’ll entertain tax policy, including tax cuts, during the regular session if we’re convinced of it,” Treat said. “But having a special session a week prior to the regular session is just a waste of resources, tax money, and it’s just political theater.”

Stitt has criticized Treat’s unwillingness to consider the tax cut during the special session.

“All I asked was for Senator Treat to put a quarter-point tax cut up for a vote. The Senate is refusing to do what 65% of Oklahomans support: cutting taxes. If anything is a waste of taxpayer money, it is the refusal of Senate leadership to give Oklahomans a well-deserved pay raise,” Stitt said in a post Thursday on the social media platform X. 

The proposed quarter-cent tax cut would save the average Oklahoma family about $100 a year, Treat said. McCall said the cut would be another step toward taking the state to zero income taxes – a path Treat said the state is “already on.”

Treat said the Senate’s hesitance is that Stitt “hasn’t enunciated a plan,” and is basing the ability for the state to absorb a tax cut on revenue estimates that won’t be finalized until February. Those numbers will then be used by lawmakers to vote on the “real budget,” Treat said. A quarter-cent tax cut would cost the state about $250 million, Treat said.

Last year, between December and February, revenue estimates declined by $611 million, Treat told The Frontier.

“The Governor claims we know the numbers, the time is now,” Treat said. “But we don’t know the numbers and we’re not sure the time is now.”

McCall told The Frontier the House of Representatives will pass Stitt’s plan on Wednesday, the earliest day possible.

“We don’t have a problem voting on it, and I believe it passes (in the House),” he said. “The question is the Senate.”

Treat said he wants to make sure any change to the state’s tax rate “is sustainable.”

“I want to make sure that whatever we do tax policy wise … doesn’t jeopardize the future of Oklahoma,” he said.

This is Listen Frontier, a podcast exploring the investigative journalism of the Frontier and featuring conversations with those on the frontlines of Oklahoma’s most important stories. Listen to us Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher. 

To donate to The Frontier and help support our efforts to grow investigative journalism in Oklahoma, click here.

The post Listen Frontier: Oklahoma Senate leader says he’ll consider a tax cut, just not yet appeared first on The Frontier.

The Pensacola Dam in Langley impounds Grand Lake downstream. What role the dam plays in Miami’s history of damaging floods has been the subject of a decades-long dispute between the town and the Grand River Dam Authority. 

Melinda Stotts, spokeswoman for the City of Miami, said she and city officials are pleased with the federal order. 

“It’s a big win for us,” Stotts said. “We haven’t won the war, but we have won a battle.”

The Grand River Dam Authority could still appeal the order. The agency is currently weighing its options, spokesman Justin Alberty said in a statement.

“The January 18, 2023, order by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) appears to change 85 years of legal precedence,” Alberty said. “If the federal government is committed to providing flood control measures, we believe they need to provide adequate easements.”

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The federal order gives the Grand River Dam Authority 120 days to submit a report on flooding in the upper reaches of Grand Lake, an analysis of land upstream of the dam that is prone to flooding and whether the agency has property rights to those lands.

Then-Sen. Jim Inhofe authored legislation in 2019 that removed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s authority to require the Grand River Dam Authority to purchase additional land affected by flooding. But the new ruling states that federal regulators still have authority to do so under the dam’s current license, which was issued in 1992. 

The Grand River Dam Authority is a non-appropriated state agency established by the Oklahoma Legislature in 1935. It operates and oversees Grand Lake and the Pensacola Dam. The dam is currently undergoing relicensing through federal regulators, and the 1992 license remains in effect. 

The Grand River Dam Authority has been party to numerous lawsuits since the early 90s by property owners in the Miami area who have been flooded. Experts hired by those property owners say that the dam causes a backwater effect in the upper extremities of Grand Lake, where the Neosho, Elk and Spring rivers converge.

In 2018, the City of Miami filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, claiming that the Pensacola Dam had caused repeated flooding on 13,000 acres outside the lake’s current project boundaries and failed to acquire easements for the flooded areas in violation of its license.

The Grand River Dam Authority claimed the dam did not have an impact on upstream flooding, and that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was responsible for all aspects of flood control, including purchasing land that might be flooded. The Corps of Engineers told the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that while it is responsible for ordering releases from the Pensacola Dam during flood conditions, it falls to the Grand River Dam Authority to acquire lands around the lake impacted by flooding.

Federal regulators rejected the Grand River Dam Authority’s claim that it was not responsible for purchasing lands affected by flooding.

Miami Mayor Bless Parker called the federal order a “good win for our citizens,”

“I grew up in a home that flooded, and I understand the impact, and it’s about time somebody stood up to GRDA,” Parker said. “These facts matter, and this proves the fight for our city and its residents was worth the battle. It’s a huge victory for our citizens and our tribal partners that have suffered the continual flooding for close to 40 years. It’s nice to finally get some traction and to be heard at a federal level. We hope that we’ll get this same attention and support from our current and future state legislature.”

The post ‘Big win for us:’ Federal regulators say the Grand River Dam Authority is responsible for flooding in Miami and failed to acquire affected lands appeared first on The Frontier.

Tara Currin’s ex-boyfriend, Robert Lee Harrison Jr., showed up at her job with a gun and shot her eight times in March 2022, even though he was legally barred from having firearms. 

Harrison had three prior felony convictions, a misdemeanor conviction for domestic abuse and two active protective orders against him that should have kept him from possessing guns under state and federal laws. He also had two pending criminal charges against him for possessing a firearm after a prior felony conviction and was out of jail on bond.

If Currin had lived in one of 21 states with a red flag law, a judge could have ordered police to seize Harrison’s guns. 

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The post Listen Frontier: Reporter Ashlynd Huffman talks about her story on Oklahoma’s anti-red flag law appeared first on The Frontier.

Walters filed more than $4,000 in claims for out-of-state travel expenses during his first year in office, according to reimbursement forms obtained by The Frontier. He expensed the trips despite an order from the Governor’s office banning public spending for most out-of-state travel.

• Walters claimed $489 in travel reimbursements to cover the cost of mileage, per diem and a hotel room in the Dallas area in April 2023 and attend the premiere of the anti-abortion horror film Nefarious. The film was shot in Oklahoma City and is about a serial killer who is set for execution but is possessed by a demon.

• He spent $1,102 for airfare, lodging and other expenses for a trip to National Harbor, Maryland, later that same month to speak at a conference at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center sponsored by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. 

• Walters also billed the state between $1,025 and $1,220 for a speaking appearance at the Moms for Liberty Joyful Warriors Summit in Philadelphia in June, according to travel forms that included estimated airfare costs. Moms for Liberty covered the cost of his hotel room. 

• He claimed another $552 for airfare, mileage and per diem for an appearance as the keynote speaker at the Freedom Foundation’s Teachers for Freedom Summit in Denver in July. The event featured sessions such as “Teachers Unions: An International Problem” and “Is woke curriculum taking over your subject?”  

• Walters traveled to Washington D.C. for two days in August. The estimated total cost of Walters’ travel including airfare and lodging was between $989 and $1,067, documents show. The trip was for “policy meetings,” according to a state travel form and airfare estimates. An itinerary shows Walters had two meetings with representatives from conservative think tanks but most of the trip was spent making media appearances, including talk shows affiliated with the far-right media outlet The Epoch Times, which has ties to the Falun Gong religious movement and a podcast hosted by the president of the Heritage Foundation. 

Walters’ first stop during his August trip to Washington was for coffee with a representative from Fox News in charge of booking guests for the program America’s Newsroom to discuss “national media opportunities,” according to a travel itinerary. Jenna Thomas, Walters’ chief of staff at the State Department of Education, accompanied him on the trip, billing the state for an additional $1,059 in travel expenses. 

State travel request forms require a manager’s signature, but as the head of the Oklahoma State Department of Education, Walters signed off on his own trip expenses. The Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services paid the travel claims. A spokesperson for the agency said Walters submitted all the required documentation for the trips.

Dan Isett, a spokesperson for Walters at the State Department of Education, did not answer The Frontier’s requests for more information about the purpose of the trips and why Walters was able to approve his own travel requests.

“Oklahomans are not surprised or fooled by another attack and fake controversy from the liberal media. Superintendent Walters will never stop leading Oklahoma and the nation to reform our schools, get back to basics, and improve student academic outcomes,” Isett said in an email. “There is a story to be told and travel throughout Oklahoma and around the country is a normal part of the duties of any statewide office holder. Superintendent Walters continues to meticulously protect Oklahoma taxpayers from the wasteful spending we’ve seen under previous administrations.”

Walters has rapidly become a rising star in conservative politics. Since taking office as State Superintendent in January 2023, he’s booked appearances on Fox News to talk about the “woke ideology” in public schools and testified before Congress in support of Republican lawmakers’ efforts to investigate educational programs funded by the Chinese government. He is also a frequent guest on right-wing podcasts and talk shows. 

The Frontier obtained records documenting Walters’ travel expenses from Sen. Mary Boren, D-Norman, who requested the information from the State Department of Education last year. Boren said she is concerned Walters has put personal promotion above his duties to oversee public education in the state. 

“It’s more fun to stir the pot and get pats on the head and lovey-doveys from the radical right than it is to actually ensure that we recruit and retain teachers,” Boren said. 

Walters’ administration has touted a recruitment program it says has brought 117 out-of-state teachers into Oklahoma classrooms. 

Gov. Kevin Stitt issued a moratorium on all non-essential, state-funded, out-of-state travel in 2019 that remains in effect. Stitt has banned most out-of-state trips for state officers and employees unless the travel is “critical to the performance of core agency functions,” to obtain professional accreditation not available in Oklahoma or for matters involving the federal government.

As a separately elected official, Walters did not seek permission from the Governor’s office for his travel, said Abegail Cave, a spokesperson for Stitt. 

“Governor Stitt thinks all elected officials and government employees should be good stewards of taxpayer dollars,” Cave told The Frontier.

During Walters’ two-day trip to the Dallas area last year, he attended the red-carpet premiere of the film Nefarious and appeared on conservative commentator Glenn Beck’s podcast. Beck also made a cameo appearance in the movie. 

Walters’ room at the Drury Inn & Suites in Frisco, Texas, was booked under the group name Nefarious Movie LLC, according to a travel reimbursement form. The form shows Walters claimed mileage for the drive from the Beck-affiliated American Journey Experience museum next door to the studio where Beck records his podcast to a movie theater in Plano on the same date that the Nefarious film premiere was held there. Ted Cruz, the U.S. Senator from Texas, also attended the premiere. 

Walters praised ​​Nefarious and spoke about attending the premiere in Texas during an interview in May 2023 with conservative talk show host Steve Deace, who co-wrote the film. 

“Folks are getting to see on the big screen what we are up against, what evil looks like in today’s time, what Satan is doing in the world today, ” Walters said. “It is an absolutely incredible film.”

In interviews, Deace credited Walters with helping to end a film crew strike on the set of the film. Walters “went to war for us,” Deace said.  

Walters wrote on a travel expense form that his trip to Texas was to meet with “educational stakeholders,” but he didn’t include any details about who he met with or what was discussed.  

Isett did not provide the names of the stakeholders Walters met with when The Frontier asked for more detailed information.

“Yes, he was able to meet with many essential stakeholders and spread Oklahoma’s story of how we are fighting wokeism in the classroom,” Isett responded in an email. “All of Ryan Walters’ travel has been essential to attract new teachers, fight against radical wokeism and the over-sexualization and grooming of our kids. There is nothing more important than Oklahoma’s mission to educate and protect our kids.” 

The post Oklahoma paid for Ryan Walters’ travel for speaking engagements, media appearances and a horror movie premiere appeared first on The Frontier.

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.

Among the dozens of bills pre-filed for the legislative session that begins Feb. 5, at least two seek to make changes to the Oklahoma Energy Discrimination Elimination Act. The 2022 law requires the State Treasurer’s office to make a list of companies it believes are boycotting the fossil fuel industry. Under the law, state pension systems are required to divest any retiree funds managed by blacklisted firms. State, county and city governments are also not allowed to contract with those companies.

The law leaves it up to the treasurer to decide what financial firms end up on the state’s blacklist, though heavy emphasis is placed on companies with environmental, social and governance investment vehicles. Oklahoma’s law is mostly a word-for-word copy of a Texas law passed a year earlier.

The Frontier reported in May 2023 that the Oklahoma State Treasurer’s office applied criteria for blacklisting companies inconsistently, leaving some firms claiming they have been arbitrarily and wrongly banned from doing business with the state. 

Oklahoma state pension systems said they were not given guidance on implementing the law, and retirees could lose millions if the state were to fully divest from blacklisted companies. At least one municipality said it would have to pay higher interest rates on new bonds.

The list was later pared down to six companies.

The law allows pension funds to claim an exemption if divesting from blacklisted companies would cause them to act against the best financial interests of state retirees. Russ conceded that some of the state’s pension systems may have to take an exemption, but he later criticized the Oklahoma Public Employees Retirement System for doing so. Russ’s office later also took an exemption  from the law to continue to do business with Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase. 

In advance of the upcoming legislative session, Sen. Dave Rader, R-Tulsa, has filed Senate Bill 1536, which would require the State Treasurer’s office to seek an opinion from the state Attorney General if it disagrees with a state agency’s decision to continue to do business with a blacklisted company. 

Rader said the goal is to have a third party arbitrate disagreements between the treasurer’s office and state agencies on how the law is applied. The bill comes out of an interim study at the Oklahoma Capitol in October on the Energy Discrimination Elimination Act.

“There seemed to be confusion as far as the meaning or implementation of the bill,” Rader said. “One of the things that came out of the study is there was not a defined person or process to determine if the law was being followed. You might have the interpretation of the agency and the interpretation of the treasurer and they might not be in sync.

“To me, this was one of the more glaring needs that came out of the study,” he said.

Senate Bill 1510 by Sen. Chuck Hall, R-Perry, would make cities and counties exempt from the law. Hall, who is also CEO and chairman of the Perry-based lender Exchange Bank & Trust Co., did not respond to a phone message at his office.

Jordan Harvey, chief of staff for Russ, said the Treasurer’s Office is watching the bills, but declined to comment on whether the office supports or opposes the measures.

Two other bills introduced last year dealing with the Energy Discrimination Elimination Act didn’t get passed but are still alive, including Senate Bill 469 and Senate Bill 470, both by Sen. Lonnie Paxton, R-Tuttle. Senate Bill 469 would extend the prohibitions in the Energy Discrimination Elimination Act to state universities and colleges, while Senate Bill 470 would require financial firms to act in the best financial interests of retirees and beneficiaries when they participate in shareholder votes on behalf of public retirement funds.

The deadline to file bills in the Legislature is Jan. 18.

The post Bills seek changes to Oklahoma’s ‘woke’ investment ban 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.

It’s true that some Oklahoma colleges and universities have hosted hot-button events like drag shows and lectures on race and gender issues. Some institutions also maintain diversity offices that employ full-time staff to oversee programs. But the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education’s 2023 report on DEI spending also includes programs for students with autism and veterans as well as staff who oversee compliance with Title IX,  the federal mandate that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires DEI practices, as well as some accreditation programs, according to the State Regents. Some DEI funding comes not from the state but federal or private sources. 

The Frontier used public records, state data and requests for information from schools, campus organization and other sources to fact-check claims about Oklahoma’s DEI spending from public officials and advocacy groups. 

Claim: The University of Oklahoma spent $1 million furnishing menstrual products in men’s bathrooms.
Source: A flyer distributed at the Oklahoma Capitol in December made this claim, crediting the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, a conservative think tank, as the source of the information. The flier included a QR code linking to an anti-DEI website maintained by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs.
Fact check: False 

The campus group OU Women’s Health Advocacy says it is the sole provider of free menstrual products at the University of Oklahoma. It maintains more than 80 menstrual stations on and off campus in women’s and gender-neutral restrooms. The group did previously place products in a few men’s restrooms in one building at the request of a professor, said Emily Carr, president of OU Women’s Health Advocacy.  

“We did this in acknowledgment that not all menstruators identify as women and, as an organization, we wanted to eradicate any potential barriers for obtaining menstrual products,” Carr said in an email. “However, due to a lack of use, those stations are no longer there.” 

The group is primarily funded by donations. Carr said the only money the group has received from OU amounts to less than $8,000 since 2019 from the Student Government Association.

The Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs did not respond to questions about whether it published or distributed the flier. 
-Brianna Bailey

Claim: The University of Oklahoma held identity-based graduation ceremonies in 2023
Source: An April 2023 article from the conservative Campus Reform website claims OU planned  “ceremonies segregated by ethnicity and gender identity.” 
Fact check: True but misleading 

OU held five different identity-based graduation celebrations in 2023, but a university spokesperson said in an email that it only holds one university-wide ceremony where degrees are officially conferred. According to the OU Multicultural Programs and Services website, different cultural groups based on race, gender identity or sexual orientation held celebrations before and after graduation. The goal of these events was to create a “more intimate celebration” of students’ successes. 
-Ari Fife

Claim: Some DEI staff at Oklahoma colleges and universities earn six-figure salaries. 
Source: “We need to stop sending six-figure salaries to DEI staff and more on preparing students to get that job and to have a successful career,” Gov. Kevin Stitt said during a press conference in December.
Fact check: True

At least a few DEI staff at Oklahoma universities make six-figure salaries. The Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education reported in 2023 that a diversity and inclusion program coordinator for the Price College of Business made $100,320 that year, partially funded with state money. A senior program administrator in charge of diversity equity and inclusion programs for the OU Athletics Department made $149,160 in 2023, but the salary wasn’t paid with state money. 

Stitt spokesman Meyer Siegfried shared meeting minutes showing Belinda Hyppolite, who OU hired as its vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion in 2019, makes $230,000 a year. Siegfried also said Oklahoma State University’s vice president of diversity makes more than $200,000 a year, but The Frontier couldn’t independently verify that figure. Oklahoma State University’s Division of Institutional Diversity touts a 111% increase in students of color earning a bachelor’s degree from the school since 2010, but its directory of DEI employees sends users to an empty page, as does a link to the school’s DEI Task Force. 
-Dylan Goforth

Claim: A student orientation program at the University of Oklahoma featured drag queens and “queer tours.” 
Source: Sen. Rob Standridge, R-Norman, said this during an interim study on DEI programs he hosted at the Capitol in October. “I saw the OU Sooner camp. I didn’t see any Bible study, which I would have been surprised to see that, but we see queer tours, drag shows and drag bingo for all these young kids coming onto campus. Is that really what we want to spend our money and time doing?” Standridge said, according to the OU Daily. “Shouldn’t we just talk to them about math and science and English and just let them study?” 
Fact check: True, but misleading

The OU Gender and Equality Center hosted a “Queer Tour,” in August, a guided tour of the OU campus meant to “connect students to resources, allies and queer-friendly spaces across campus.” The event was held during the University of Oklahoma’s “Camp Crimson” — a weeklong orientation camp for incoming college freshmen featuring numerous activities, games and campus tours. The Gender and Equality Center also hosted “Drag Bingo: Pride on the Prairie,” an event that featured performances by drag queens. But going on the tour, attending the drag performance or even attending Camp Crimson entirely were not mandatory for incoming freshmen. The events were only two among dozens of other non-academic activities that were also available for new college students during Camp Crimson and were not part of the university’s academic programs.
-Clifton Adcock

Claim: Oklahoma colleges spent $83 million on diversity programs. 
Source: This was the headline of a Feb. 15 article on the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs website. 
Fact check: True but misleading

Oklahoma public colleges and universities reported spending $83.4 million over the past decade on diversity, equity and inclusion programs and personnel, according to data The Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education released in February 2023. But the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs headline and accompanying article lack critical information to put that figure into context. The article neglects to mention that $83.4 million represents less than one-third of 1% of Oklahoma’s total higher education spending over the past 10 years. Less than one-tenth of 1% of DEI spending came from state higher education funding. Some of the money came from federal programs, charitable donations and other private sources. The State Regents counted spending on support and engagement programs for students from a wide variety of underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds including those with low incomes and disabilities, students aging out of foster care and single parents as well as people of color and different gender identities.
-Brianna Bailey

Rating system: 
True: A claim that is backed up by factual evidence
Mostly true: A claim that is mostly true but also contains some inaccurate details 
Mixed: A claim that contains a combination of accurate and inaccurate or unproven information 
True but misleading: A claim that is factually true but omits critical details or context 
Mostly false: A claim that is mostly false but also contains some accurate details 
False: A claim that has no basis in fact

The post From drag queen bingo to tampons in men’s rooms, we fact-checked Oklahoma’s DEI scare appeared first on The Frontier.