The state official in charge of Oklahoma’s schools is facing calls for impeachment, after he said teachers should tell students that the Tulsa race massacre was not racially motivated.

In a public forum on Thursday, Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s state superintendent of public instruction, said teachers could cover the 1921 massacre, in which white Tulsans murdered an estimated 300 Black people, but teachers should not “say that the skin color determined it”.

Walters is a pro-Trump Republican who was elected to oversee Oklahoma education in November. He has consistently indulged in rightwing talking points including “woke ideology” and has said critical race theory should not be taught in classrooms. Republicans have frequently conflated banning critical race theory with banning any discussion of racial history in classrooms.

At the forum in Norman, Oklahoma, Walters was asked how the massacre could “not fall” under his broad definition of CRT.

“I would never tell a kid that because of your race, because of your color of your skin, or your gender or anything like that, you are less of a person or are inherently racist.

“That doesn’t mean you don’t judge the actions of individuals. Oh, you can, absolutely. Historically, you should: ‘This was right. This was wrong. They did this for this reason.’

“But to say it was inherent in that … because of their skin is where I say that is critical race theory. You’re saying that race defines a person. I reject that.

“So I would say you be judgmental of the issue, of the action, of the content, of the character of the individual, absolutely. But let’s not tie it to the skin color and say that the skin color deermined it.”