Teacher Aaron Baker’s viral TikTok reveals Oklahoma’s superintendent pushing Bibles in every classroom and a Constitution missing key amendments, sparking lawsuits and debate over church-state separation.

A teacher’s video that put specifics on the record

Aaron Baker, an Oklahoma AP U.S. Government teacher, posted a TikTok after receiving two “God Bless the USA” Bibles for his classroom. In his video—and in interviews with Fox 25 (OKC)—Baker shows that the edition’s back-matter prints the U.S. Constitution with only the Bill of Rights and omits Amendments 11–27 (which include, among others, abolition of slavery, birthright citizenship and equal protection, Black men’s suffrage, and women’s suffrage). He also points out the document still contains the original Constitution’s three-fifths clause. The publisher told Fox 25 it intentionally included only “the original founding father documents,” i.e., the Constitution as ratified in 1788 plus the first ten amendments, not the later 17 amendments. KOKH

Why did these particular Bibles arrive in Oklahoma classrooms? Because the state’s top education official has been actively trying to put Bibles into public schools—and partnered publicly with the Bible’s celebrity backer.

The policy push: “every classroom” should have a Bible

On June 27, 2024, State Superintendent Ryan Walters ordered Oklahoma schools to have a Bible in every classroom and to use it as “instructional support.” That directive drew immediate constitutional objections from educators and civil-liberties groups. Reuters Lawsuits followed, seeking to block the mandate. AP News In 2025, Walters escalated by seeking donations and state purchases to supply Bibles statewide, explicitly teaming with singer Lee Greenwood, whose “God Bless the USA” Bible former President Trump endorsed. AP News

There’s also a paper trail tying the state’s procurement to that edition: in October 2024 the Associated Press reported that the state’s initial bid request for 55,000 Bibles “appeared to match” the Trump-endorsed edition’s specifications (price and inclusion of U.S. historical documents). After scrutiny, the request was amended to be vendor-agnostic. AP News

What courts have done so far

Even as Walters has tried to operationalize the mandate, the Oklahoma Supreme Court has repeatedly slowed or halted pieces of the agenda:

• Bible purchasing/rollout: On March 10, 2025, the Oklahoma Supreme Court stayed any state contracts to buy Bibles and Bible-infused curriculum while litigation proceeds; Walters later asked the court to lift the stay. American Civil Liberties Union+2KOSU+2
• Christian-nationalist social studies rewrite: On Sept. 15–16, 2025, the court ordered schools to revert to the 2019 social-studies standards, pausing Walters’ new standards (which critics said would embed “Biblical principles” and even 2020 election falsehoods). Oklahoma Voice+2AP News+2
• Related church-state boundary: In 2024–2025 litigation over a proposed publicly funded Catholic charter school, the Oklahoma Supreme Court (and then a 4–4 U.S. Supreme Court) left in place the ruling that Oklahoma public schools must be nonsectarian under the state constitution. Reuters+1

The constitutional frame in Oklahoma

Oklahoma’s own constitution is emphatic: public schools must be “free from sectarian control” (Art. I, §5), and no public money may support a sect, church, or religious teacher (Art. II, §5). These provisions underpin the court’s posture in the charter-school case and loom over the Bible-mandate fight. Justia Law+1

At the classroom level, Oklahoma law forbids teaching sectarian doctrine in public schools, while not barring neutral, academic treatment of religion in history or literature. That legal tension—teach about religion versus promoting a religion—is exactly where a blanket Bible presence/usage order collides with the Establishment Clause and Oklahoma’s stricter protections. The Frontier

Why the missing amendments—and the 3/5 clause—matter

Baker’s point is not a mere detail quibble; it’s civic substance. Printing only the original Constitution plus the Bill of Rights—and excluding Amendment XI through XXVII—erases the constitutional changes that ended slavery, nationalized equal protection, and democratized the franchise. Keeping the three-fifths clause while omitting the amendments that nullify its effects presents a skewed civic narrative. When those books are the ones Oklahoma’s education chief is trying to place in classrooms, that skew becomes a state-endorsed lens unless courts or districts stop it. KOKH

To be clear: the teacher’s video does not claim Oklahoma rewrote the Constitution itself. It shows that the edition being placed in classrooms cherry-picks the Constitution to its pre-Civil War form in the back matter. That aligns with independent reporting about this Bible’s content and with AP’s documentation of the state’s initial procurement aligning with the Trump-endorsed edition. KOKH+1

Where things stand now

• Walters’ directive that schools teach with the Bible remains contested and unevenly followed; major districts have publicly balked. The litigation over the mandate and purchases is active, with a high-court stay on state buying. AP News+2NonDoc+2
• The Lee Greenwood/Trump-endorsed Bible that Baker highlighted has, by the publisher’s own explanation, omitted Amendments 11–27 from its printed Constitution while retaining the original’s three-fifths language. Oklahoma’s procurement steps initially pointed toward that book before the bid was broadened. KOKH+1
• The Oklahoma Supreme Court’s recent orders show a judiciary enforcing the line against state-sponsored religion in public education—both in curriculum and in purchases—under the state constitution’s stronger church-state wall. Oklahoma Voice+2American Civil Liberties Union+2

Why this is bigger than one TikTok

Baker’s video succeeds because it translates abstract fights into a physical artifact a student might hold: a classroom Bible whose appended “Constitution” stops right before the amendments that define modern citizenship. He reframes the question from “Can schools talk about the Bible?” (yes, neutrally) to “Should the state hand-pick a sectarian text that presents an amputated Constitution—and require teachers to use it?” In a public system legally required to be nonsectarian, the answer, legally and civically, is no. Justia Law+1

If Oklahoma wants students to understand American history, the honest approach is obvious: teach the full Constitution (all 27 amendments), teach the Bible’s cultural impact and the nation’s religious pluralism, and teach how the three-fifths clause was superseded by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. Anything less morphs civic education into mythology.