Surprise! The rollout for Kristi Noem’s anti-LGBTQ+ “whistleblower hotline” has been a total sh*tshow

In the least surprising news of the week, Kristi Noem’s new anti-LGBTQ+ “whistleblower hotline” has been a giant mess (and a headache for those in charge of handling it) since it was created a little over a month and a half ago.

South Dakota’s gay-hating governor announced the hotline right around the start of Pride month. The purpose, she said, was to combat the “state of crisis” happening in higher education and not allow “liberal ideologies to poison [South Dakota’s] colleges and universities.”

Across the nation, higher education is in a state of crisis.

From prioritizing feelings over facts to radical indoctrination, as a country, we should be ashamed of this.

As a state, South Dakota can show the nation what quality higher education is supposed to look like. pic.twitter.com/wMdl7Op2Ef

— Kristi Noem (@KristiNoem) May 26, 2023

Noem encouraged students, professors, faculty, parents, taxpayers, and anyone with a phone, really, to call and complain about anything and everything “woke” happening at the state’s public higher education institutions.

Within hours of the hotline going live, the mailbox was full.

Shortly after that, Noem announced that–surprise!–it had received an alarming number of reports of schools encouraging “transgender ideologies” and requiring students to share their preferred pronouns during course introductions.

Other complaints included students being asked to wear masks and take COVID tests, being assigned to read non-white authors in their freshman lit courses, being supplied with Ukrainian flag pins, and being encouraged to take antidepressants to help cope with, wait for it, depression.

But things quickly went awry when confusion arose over who was actually supposed to manage the hotline and field the thousands of incoming calls.

Noem initially said the Board of Regents would handle it, but the Board of Regents said it was being “fully managed by the governor’s office,” despite the fact that callers were greeted with a message thanking them for “calling the South Dakota Board of Regents whistleblower hotline.”

At some point, the board agreed to take responsibility for managing the hotline and clearing its overloaded mailbox… only for an entirely new set of difficult questions to emerge.

Mainly, who will actually listen to the messages? How will the anonymous complaints be documented, vetted, and verified? How will they be investigated? Who will do the investigating? What will happen once the investigation is complete? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

When asked by local media, Noem’s office didn’t have much to offer, other than to say it will “use the information we learn to guide policy decisions moving forward.”

Meanwhile, Shuree Mortenson, spokesperson for the Board of Regents, issued a vague statement saying that the board was trying to figure out how the hell to handle the situation.

“While anonymous complaints can be challenging to verify, we strive to make every student feel welcome at our universities,” she said. “We are looking into these concerns and will work with the board to determine any necessary action.”

The hotline is still active, although we have a sneaking suspicion it won’t be around much longer. Now that Pride month is over, Noem has turned her attention away from LGBTQ+ people and taken on a new target: “woke” ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s, who she says “don’t have any idea what they’re doing.”

Related:

Kristi Noem takes a break from bitching about drag queens to whine about “woke” ice cream instead

The gay-hating governor is crying over melted ice cream.