It's college graduation season in the U.S., meaning millions of students across the country are relishing in a huge milestone that should be cause for
celebration and uplifting messages. This usually takes the form of commencement ceremonies featuring
inspiring speeches from high-profile business leaders, lawmakers, or artists.That's not what happened at
Benedictine College, a small Catholic university in Kansas. Instead, their commencement speaker
told women who were graduating that they'd been told a pack of "diabolic lies" about the importance of education and careers, insisting their lives would be better if they just stay home and raise children.Benedictine College must speak out immediately. It should apologize for inviting this man to speak and denounce all of his insulting and hateful rhetoric now! Sign the petition!The speaker, Harrison Butker, is a kicker with the football team the Kansas City Chiefs. He used 20 minutes on stage in front of these students to attack LGBTQ+ rights, rail against "degenerate cultural values," and deny the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic that claimed 1.2 million lives in the U.S. and 7 million lives around the world.
Then he launched into his big moment, saying that female students' "most important title" should be "homemaker." According to him,
his wife's life only "truly started when she started living her vocation as a wife and as a mother."These students just spent
years of their lives fighting to earn their degrees, enduring sleepless nights, intense stress, and fears of failure.
Many of these students will also have taken out large student loans, sometimes to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.
To now tell them that their degrees are essentially worthless or were a waste of their time - because of their gender? It's shocking that a university that
took these students' money and spent years educating them would allow a speech like this at their own commencement celebration.
Benedictine College must speak out now and disavow these disrespectful, sexist words, and apologize for allowing this man to spread such a hateful viewpoint. The Kansas City Chiefs, which has so far also remained silent on this topic, must speak out and denounce Butker's views as well. Sign the petition!