It turns out that when South Dakota governor Kristi Noem said she wanted to be a leader “for the next generation,” she really meant “who ensures the next generation shares all of my bigotry and intolerance.”
On Wednesday, Noem signed HB 1012 into law, which prevents teachers and school officials from mandating that “divisive concepts” be taught in South Dakota classrooms or be incorporated into trainings. Under the new law, such concepts are to include whether someone should “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress” because of their race, gender, nationality, or religion, and that meritocracies are racist or sexist in any way.
The new law comes directly on the heels of Noem’s signature on HB 1318 last week, which restricts South Dakotans’ access to abortion via medication, and her ban on trans girls in women’s school sports that went into effect in February — the first anti-trans state law passed in 2022.
Originally introduced as “an act to protect students from critical race theory,” HB 1012 effectively outlaws classroom instruction on many realities of U.S. history and modern life; teachers may no longer suggest that white people were to blame for Black enslavement, because that would introduce the concept of white “inherent responsibility” for the actions of their relatives. Homophobia and transphobia similarly cannot be attributed to straight or cisgender people, rendering the entire concept of prejudice an evil for which nobody is ever truly responsible — which is obviously in the best interests of the GOP.
“By passing and then signing this onerous partisan bill, Noem just ensured that the only voices in the room will be White, Christian, and opposed to having students being able to think for themselves,” an anonymous source within the South Dakota State University faculty told the Washington Blade. “This bill will lead to revisionism created by an atmosphere of fear where my colleagues would be reluctant to put their employment in jeopardy if they dared to tell the truth.”
HB 1012 also erases Native communities and their history of oppression within the territory that today is South Dakota. Noem’s administration has already tried to smother that history by erasing Native topics from new state education standards last year. “I do not blame any member of this committee for what happened or the plight of the American Indian [...] but I do expect you to understand it,” said Sen. Troy Heinert, a member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe, in a committee hearing on HB 1012 before its passage.
As Noem signed the bill into law Wednesday, dozens of students walked out of Lincoln High School in Sioux Falls to protest anti-LGBTQ+ bills in their state and around the country. Demonstrating at an intersection just outside school grounds, the students chanted and held signs demanding LGBTQ+ rights, and one student came out as genderfluid over a megaphone to cheers from their fellow students.
“We're here to make some noise, and let people know we're not going away,” one student told the local Argus Leader. “Someone has got to do something.”
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