Amy London, the former secretary of the Oklahoma State Board of Education, has sued the Oklahoma State Department of Education in federal court, claiming she was wrongfully fired while Ryan Walters led both the board and the agency. London alleges the July 17, 2025 termination was really retaliation and discrimination tied to her age and gender, carried out by a department that she says never had the legal authority to fire her in the first place.
According to The Oklahoman, London contends that Matt Mohler, Walters' former chief of staff, could not legally fire her because state law grants workplace personnel authority over the board secretary to the State Board of Education itself, not the department. She says the department's general counsel ultimately terminated her at the direction of senior male managers. London, who is older than 60, alleges in her lawsuit that she suffered age and gender harassment and a hostile work environment, and that she filed a grievance with the agency's human resources department on June 30, 2025, 17 days before she was let go.
The allegations build on reporting that first surfaced in September, when Oklahoma Voice reported London had submitted a tort claim demanding $100,000 from the department over her firing. That outlet reported London's central legal argument has remained consistent: that only the State Board, not the department, has authority over hiring and firing the board secretary. The state board had voted to hire London in December to succeed longtime board secretary Terrie Cheadle, Oklahoma Voice reported.
Pattern of Confrontation Before the Firing
London's lawsuit describes a monthslong pattern of friction with Mohler well before her dismissal. Per the lawsuit, Mohler told London in March 2025 that he did not trust her, remarks made to then-Walters spokesperson Grace Kim and colleagues. By June 2025, the suit alleges, Mohler told employees that London had a big mouth and that he would have fired her if he could — comments a former board attorney later relayed to London, according to the lawsuit.
London also alleges that Mohler directed her not to communicate with board members until 24 hours before any public meeting, a restriction she says Walters himself approved. Separately, the Oklahoma Voice report detailed that this same directive included withholding draft agendas and supporting documents from London until that 24-hour window, which she says interfered with her ability to do her job. Her termination letter, dated July 17, cited what KOKH FOX 25 described as an ongoing pattern of performance deficiencies, repeated violations of agency expectations and a breach of confidentiality. London has said the real motive was retaliation for internal complaints she filed in June describing a hostile work environment, according to that station's report.
The department has pushed back forcefully on London's account. OSDE previously told News 9 that the allegations amounted to nothing more than baseless allegations from a disgruntled former employee. For this latest lawsuit, neither Mohler nor Walters responded to requests for comment from The Oklahoman.
Attorney Says Firing Fits a Troubling Pattern
London's attorney, Oklahoma City-based Mark Hammons, said he hopes she will be compensated for the injury caused by her firing. Hammons said a lot of people can understand what London went through without any justification for the termination, and noted how disruptive a sudden job loss can be: it's tough when you've got bills and all of a sudden you don't have a job to pay those bills, he said, per The Oklahoman.
Board Turmoil Surrounded Walters' Final Months
London's firing landed amid a broader shake-up of the State Board of Education. Gov. Kevin Stitt removed three board members and named four newcomers, who often sided with Stitt and whose arrival helped derail Walters' culture-wars policy agenda, according to the seed reporting from The Oklahoman. Images of naked women shown on a television set in Walters' office prompted an inquiry led by OMES and a sheriff's office investigation. Walters resigned from office in September 2025, and Mohler left shortly after.
The turbulence extended well beyond London's case. Oklahoma Voice reported that the state board voted on Sept. 3 to begin accepting applications for its next board secretary. More than two dozen cases against Walters or the department have been tied to his tenure overseeing Oklahoma's K-12 schools, with a handful still ongoing. Lindel Fields, Walters' appointed replacement, has worked to settle many of the lawsuits tied to policies Walters had floated.
Fields told The Frontier that he inherited an agency with more than 20 lawsuits, more than 80 outstanding open-records requests and a backlog of teacher-certification revocation cases, along with low employee morale and strained communication between schools and the department. The Oklahoma Supreme Court separately invalidated Walters' revamped social studies standards after finding the State Board had violated open-meeting law when it approved them, that outlet reported.
London's case is not the first to end in a financial claim against Walters-era leadership. Former OSDE employees Cheryl McGee and Matt Colwell settled federal lawsuits against Walters for a combined $132,000, according to News 9, with McGee receiving $50,000 and Colwell $17,000 and the remainder going to attorneys. Both had alleged Walters and adviser Matt Langston threatened employees with termination for speaking to the media, and said they were fired within days of receiving that warning; Langston later admitted the email had been a trap for department whistleblowers, per News 9's reporting.
