South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem sought Monday to repair the breach created by her decision to send a women’s sports bill back to the state Legislature, insisting that her team hasn’t changed, just her playbook.
The Republican governor unveiled the Defend Title IX Now coalition, an effort to build a supersquad of states opposed to transgender athletes competing in collegiate women’s sports on the theory that the NCAA may be able to steamroll one or two states but not an entire roster.
“Once we have enough states on board, a coalition big enough where the NCAA cannot possibly punish us all, then we can guarantee fairness at the collegiate level,” Ms. Noem said at a press conference in Pierre.
In her corner were a pair of former NFL players — Herschel Walker and Jack Brewer — and legendary golfer Nancy Lopez, who said in a statement, “I support Governor Noem in her efforts to defend Title IX.”
Although star power never hurts, Ms. Noem already may have lost the locker room, and delivered a self-inflicted wound to her rising political career, with her Friday “style and form” veto of the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act.
She was accused of betraying conservatives and women’s sports advocates by returning H.B. 1217 to the state Legislature with a request for several changes, including dropping collegiate athletics from the legislation, despite having said earlier this month that she was “excited” to sign the bill.
After consulting with legal experts, Ms. Noem said, she concluded that the NCAA undoubtedly would take punitive action by, for example, pulling tournaments and games out of South Dakota and setting up a courtroom fight that the state could not win.
“If the NCAA did take action against the state of South Dakota, we could sue them,” she said. “I know we could do that, but these respected legal scholars informed me that we would likely lose.”
Last year, the NCAA considered dropping events in Idaho over its women’s sports bill but tabled the matter when a court stayed the law pending a legal challenge. In 2016, however, North Carolina lost seven NCAA championship basketball games after enacting a so-called bathroom bill that required transgender people to use public facilities based on their birth sex.
“So we could pass a law, then we could get punished, then we could face expensive litigation at taxpayer expense, and then we could lose,” Ms. Noem said. “We would have nothing but a participation trophy to show for it. Or we could take a different path entirely.”
She said that already on board with the Defend Title IX Now coalition is Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, who signed a women’s sports bill earlier this month, the second state to do so after Idaho.
“I’m still excited to sign the bill,” Ms. Noem said. “Nothing’s changed.”
Even so, American Principles Project President Terry Schilling accused Ms. Noem of “trying to appease wealthy and powerful special interests in her state while also making it falsely appear that she is doing the right thing.”
“Noem claimed to be taking action to protect girls’ sports, but in reality, her announced initiative was a meaningless gesture calculated to deflect criticism of her surrender to NCAA threats,” Mr. Schilling said.
The Women’s Liberation Front said that such a strength-in-numbers coalition already exists in the form of more than two dozen states that have introduced bills like South Dakota’s.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which represents three Connecticut female track athletes who lost races to transgender runners, called the Defend Title IX coalition a “hollow substitute for the urgent protections for women’s sports in the form of H.B. 1217.”
“By stalling her support, attempting to dodge the legal conflict, removing protections for collegiate athletes, and eliminating a female athlete’s legal remedy when her rights are violated, Gov. Noem, through her actions, has downplayed the injustices that girls and women are already facing when they are forced to compete against males,” said ADF general counsel Kristen Waggoner.
She added that if Ms. Noem is worried about litigation, then “ADF would stand with her to defend H.B. 1217 if she signs this legislation.”
South Dakota’s Republican legislative leadership issued a statement Friday expressing concerns about the governor’s “unprecedented veto,” and the bill’s opponents were happy to pile on.
“This backtrack, by even an extreme governor with national political aspirations, exposes the economic, legal, and reputational threats these bills pose to states considering anti-transgender legislation and has sparked an uproar amongst conservative groups who see Governor Noem playing politics and trying to have it both ways,” said a Monday statement by the Human Rights Campaign.
Ms. Noem deflected questions about the implications for transgender athletes, saying her coalition campaign is “specifically about protecting Title IX and about women playing women’s sports.”
“It is not about transgender. There’s nothing in this coalition or in this discussion today that has to do with that issue,” she said.
The governor has been accused of bowing to state business groups that have opposed the legislation over economic fears — North Carolina was hit with an economic boycott in 2016 — while she defended Monday her commitment to fairness in girls’ sports.
She noted that she has two daughters who played college sports and cited her battle to stop the U.S. Department of Agriculture from combining boys’ and girls’ rodeo competitions.
“Back when the USDA tried to force boys and girls into the same events at 4H rodeo, I fought with the 4H rodeo team here in South Dakota to make sure that they remained separated,” she said. “I led the fight to protect fairness for girls in the rodeo arena, and when we won in 2018, it’s because we approached it in a smart way.”
Ms. Noem also made the case that physical differences between men and women “are very real” and said, “I believe girls should play girls’ sports based on their birth certificates.”
The Defend Title IX Now pledge says that “only girls should play girls sports” and that the “NCAA and other athletic sanctioning bodies should not take any adverse action against any state or school that acts to protect fairness for women.”
The state Legislature is expected to take up Ms. Noem’s suggested changes on March 29, which is known as “veto day.”
Ms. Noem, who faces reelection in 2022, has been mentioned as a possible national candidate in 2024. She has won praise on the right for her anti-lockdown approach to the novel coronavirus and support of former President Donald Trump, but her critics say this issue could come back to haunt her.
“If Noem thinks this gambit will save her political career, she is sadly mistaken,” Mr. Schilling said. “Conservative voters will not forget that when given the choice between standing up for the principles of fairness and equality for girl athletes or caving to the left, she chose the latter. This failure in leadership will define her moving forward.”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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