Kristi Noem Calls for Conservative Critic’s Ouster over Complaint about ‘Kid-Friendly’ Drag

L ast month, South Dakota State University (SDSU) sparked fierce criticism from conservatives after allowing a “kid-friendly” drag show to be hosted on campus. Among those critics was Norman Woods, director of the state-based social-conservative advocacy group Family Heritage Alliance (FHA), who penned an open letter to Governor Kristi Noem urging her to take action: “Innocent children should not be exposed to drag shows. Full stop,” Woods wrote. “Considering you have the power to hold the South Dakota Board of Regents accountable and fire at will, I am greatly disappointed you and your administration have taken no action to rectify this situation or to ensure that drag shows for children never happen again on South Dakota soil.”

Noem has just responded — by denying responsibility, threatening to sever ties with FHA, and implicitly calling for Woods to be fired.

“I’d encourage the Family Heritage Alliance to evaluate the purpose of your organization,” she wrote in a letter to the group’s board of directors yesterday. “Is it to promote family values — or is it to attack the most conservative governor in the country? I believe it is the former. . . . I suggest you find an executive director who agrees.”

The controversial event, which took place on state property and was organized by the college’s Gender & Sexualities Alliance student group, encouraged attendees to “show [their] support for the drag queens by bringing $1 or $5 bills to tip,” according to a now-deleted post on the SDSU website. (“This show will be kid-friendly, so bring the whole family,” the promotional ad concluded.) The controversy led to swift condemnations from conservatives, including some in the state legislature who argued that the drag show’s content could be illegal under South Dakota’s prohibition on “show[s] or other presentation[s]” deemed “harmful to minors.” Woods’s letter echoed those criticisms and requested that Noem “work with the Attorney General’s office” to apply that section of South Dakota law, “push legislation that protects South Dakota minors from future drag shows,” and speak “to the South Dakota Board of Regents and the President of the South Dakota State University about this drag event to ensure our taxpayer-funded buildings are not used to harm our children in the future.”

Noem — whose own record on social issues has been the subject of conservative scrutiny — responded by expressing disappointment “in Mr. Woods’ decision to attack me publicly by sending this letter out of the blue and releasing it to the media at the same time, instead of reaching out to my office to have a productive conversation about how we can work together.” As a result of that “behavior,” she wrote, “my office will no longer work with the Alliance until and unless its executive director chooses to act professionally.” And in any case, the letter continued, “whether or not the event at South Dakota State University violated the state’s decency statute” is “not for me to determine as Governor.” (Although she added, “I would welcome a clarification from the Attorney General’s Office.”)

Beyond the adolescent tone of the letter — and the obvious hollowness of the claim to be “the most conservative governor in the country” — there’s a distinct irony to Noem’s tirade about Woods’s “decision to attack me publicly . . . instead of reaching out to my office.” The second-term governor has not exactly been above leveling out-of-the-blue public broadsides against her own critics.

The most obvious example of this came last year, when Jon Hansen and Scott Odenbach — Republicans in the state legislature representing South Dakota’s house districts 25 and 31, respectively — co-authored the COVID-19 Vaccine Freedom of Conscience Act, a bill proposing to effectively ban vaccination requirements for private as well as public institutions. The two representatives, along with other advocates of the initiative, publicly called for Noem to hold a special legislative session to debate the bill, pointing to similar measures in states like Florida and Texas as precedent. (The necessity of a special session, they argued, derived from the time-sensitive nature of the issue — some major private South Dakota employers had announced plans to mandate vaccines in the coming months.) Noem, who had already taken heat for publicly opposing a ban on private mandates, was not impressed and said so publicly:

Regardless of whether Noem’s stance was right on principle, many in her state argued that her position would have significant consequences for vaccine-skeptical South Dakotans. The state’s two biggest employers, Sanford Health and Avera McKennan Hospital — both health-care providers based in Sioux Falls — had already announced their plans to mandate vaccination for all employees in the fall. Critics worried that the move was a sign of more such measures to come.

Noem then attacked Hansen and Odenbach on social media — after having refused to act on a request the legislators had sent to her office asking for “the Governor’s help and leadership” on the initiative weeks earlier and snubbed multiple subsequent public statements to the same effect. A video posted to Noem’s Twitter and Facebook accounts, captioned “The Truth on where I stand…,” called out Hansen and Odenbach by name. “It is not conservative to tell businesses what to do and how to treat their employees,” Noem declared in the video. “Most of the Republican legislators get that in South Dakota — they get that. But there are the vocal few, like Jon Hansen and Scott Odenbach, who are chasing headlines and are trying to tell South Dakotans how to do business. They want to make government bigger and more powerful in your life. It’s like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

In brief, Noem is no stranger to lashing out publicly and “out of the blue” rather than engaging in “productive conversation about how we can work together.” (Just one day after her criticism of Hansen and Odenbach, Noem lobbed a bizarre set of angry tweets at conservative commentator Matt Walsh in response to his criticisms of her, arguing that he had “stooped to horrible misogyny” — “eyes up here, Matt” — and that Walsh “couldn’t walk a day in my shoes.”)

One might argue that her call for Woods’s termination, in response to FHA’s eminently reasonable and respectful initial letter, is indicative of the very behavior about which Noem is complaining.