OKLAHOMA CITY >> Oklahoma high school students studying U.S. history learn about the Industrial Revolution, women’s suffrage and America’s expanding role in international affairs.

Beginning next school year, they will add conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.

Oklahoma’s new social studies standards for K-12 public school students, already infused with references to the Bible and national pride, were revised at the direction of state School Superintendent Ryan Walters. The Republican official has spent much of his first term in office lauding President Donald Trump, feuding with teachers unions and local school superintendents, and trying to end what he describes as “wokeness” in public schools.

“The left has been pushing left-wing indoctrination in the classroom,” Walters said. “We’re moving it back to actually understanding history ... and I’m unapologetic about that.”

The previous standard for studying the 2020 election merely said, “Examine issues related to the election of 2020 and its outcome.” The new version is more expansive: “Identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results by looking at graphs and other information, including the sudden halting of ballot-counting in select cities in key battleground states, the security risks of mail-in balloting, sudden batch dumps, an unforeseen record number of voters, and the unprecedented contradiction of ‘bellwether county’ trends.”

The new standard raised red flags even among Walters’ fellow Republicans, including the governor and legislative leaders. They were concerned that several last-minute changes, including the language about the 2020 election and a provision stating the source of the COVID-19 virus was a Chinese lab, were added just hours before the state school board voted on them.

A group of parents and educators have filed a lawsuit asking a judge to reject the standards, arguing they were not reviewed properly and that they “represent a distorted view of social studies that intentionally favors an outdated and blatantly biased perspective.”

While many Oklahoma teachers have expressed outrage at the change in the standards, others say they leave plenty of room for an effective teacher to instruct students about the results of the 2020 election without misinforming them.

Aaron Baker, who has taught U.S. government in high schools in Oklahoma City for more than a decade, said he’s most concerned about teachers in rural, conservative parts of the state.

“If someone is welcoming the influence of these far-right organizations in our standards and is interested in inserting more of Christianity into our practices as teachers, then they’ve become emboldened,” Baker said. “For me, that is the major concern.”