Oklahoma officials are investigating the state’s top education official, Ryan Walters, after published reports said he had images of naked women displayed on a TV in his office during a closed board meeting — a claim the conservative superintendent is calling a political hatchet job. 

In a statement shared on X, Mr. Walters said, “As I lead the charge for a bold overhaul of education in Oklahoma, putting parents back in control, rejecting radical agendas, and demanding excellence: it’s no surprise to face politically motivated attacks.”

“Any suggestion that a device of mine was used to stream inappropriate content on the television set is categorically false,” he said, adding that he has “no knowledge of what was on the TV screen during the alleged incident, and there is absolutely no truth to any implication of wrongdoing.”

“These falsehoods are the desperate tactics of a broken establishment afraid of real change. They aren’t just attacking me, they’re attacking the values of the Oklahomans who elected me to challenge the status quo,” he said. 

Calls for a probe erupted over the weekend after the Oklahoman published a report citing two board members, Ryan Deatherage and Becky Carson, who said the images popped up on a TV screen during an executive session of the education board that took place on July 24. Oklahoma’s Office of Management and Enterprise Services is now investigating the matter. 

Ms. Carson told the Oklahoman newspaper that she saw the images and, “I was like, ‘Those are naked women.’”

“Then I was like, ‘No, wait a minute. Those aren’t naked, surely those aren’t naked women. Something is playing a trick on my eye. Maybe they just have on tan body suits. … This is just really bizarre,’” Ms. Carson said, describing the images of the fully naked women as from the 1960s. “I didn’t watch a second longer … I was so disturbed by it, I was like, ‘What is on your TV?’ I was very stern, like I’d been a mother or a classroom teacher. And I said, ‘What am I watching? Turn it off now!’”

The television sound was not on, and Mr. Walters’s back was to the TV, according to the witnesses. A spokesman for the superintendent, Quinton Hitchcock, shot back at the report, calling it a “junk tabloid lie.”

“Any number of people have access to these offices. You have a hostile board who will say and do anything except tell the truth, and now, the ‘Woklahoman’ is reporting on an alleged random TV cable image,” Mr. Hitchcock said. 

A third board member, Chris Van Dehende, told a local TV station at Oklahoma City, KFOR, that while he was at the meeting, he did not personally see the reported images. However, he concluded that Mr. Walters’s shaken reaction suggested “something clearly was on that TV that shouldn’t have been on that TV.”

The reports sparked bipartisan calls for an investigation. The Republican speaker of the Oklahoma house, Kyle Hibert, said Mr. Walters should “unlock and turn over all relevant devices” and cooperate with the investigation.

The house minority leader, Cyndi Munson, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor in 2026, said, “Regardless of if recent allegations are true, Oklahomans are in dire need of new leadership at the Oklahoma State Department of Education.”

“While we wait for more information, we will follow the guidance of the speaker and trust that any alleged moral or criminal wrongdoings will be thoroughly investigated,” Ms. Munson said.

Oklahoma’s Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, said, “I trust and appreciate my board members. They are volunteers who are sacrificing their time to serve Oklahoma students. Should these allegations be true, all I can say is that I am profoundly disappointed.”

The chairwoman of the Oklahoma Republican Party, Charity Linch, defended Mr. Walters in a post on X, writing, “Hundreds of people walk past that tv on board meeting days. The evidence would never pass the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt.”

“I believe this was a setup. Let’s have evidence that wasn’t open to so many people before crucifying. This is America,” Ms. Linch said. 

Mr. Walters has drawn attention to Oklahoma’s education system, which is one of the lowest ranked in America, as he has pushed a series of religious-based proposals, such as trying to require Bibles in public school classrooms and new academic standards that require students to identify “discrepancies” in the 2020 election as well as Bible teachings that “influenced the American colonists, founders, and culture.”

Earlier this month, he announced a plan to implement a so-called America First Assessment to quiz educators moving to Oklahoma from liberal states on their understanding of American exceptionalism as well as their “grasp of fundamental biological differences between boys and girls.”