Harrison Butker’s Atlanta hometown scolds him for commencement speech

Outrage over Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker’s opening speech, in which he urged women to prioritize their families over their careers and denounced the LGBTQ community, is echoed across the country and all the way to his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia.

Among those angered by the speech are teachers, peers and other community members who spoke with The Daily Beast about their reactions to Butker’s controversial remarks.

“I was sick. I was disgusted,” said Amy Allen, an Atlanta real estate agent whose daughter rode with Butker at Westminster Schools, the elite private academy the star athlete attended. “It was so dystopian and so backward… If someone were to sit there and say that to my daughter, I would lose it,” she told The Daily Beast.

Butker, 28, spoke Saturday to graduates of a small Catholic college in Kansas called Benedictine College. The star is a devout Catholic who has openly shared his religious views in the past, and he didn’t hold back in his speech, denouncing abortion, IVF, surrogacy, Pride Month and “values degenerate cultures”.

In a particularly controversial remark, Butker told female graduates that their “most important title” should be “housewife,” adding, “Some of you might have successful careers in the world, but I would dare to guess that the Most of you are very excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into the world… I can tell you that my beautiful wife, Isabelle, would be the first to say that her life truly began when she began to live her vocation as a wife and as a mother.”

The remarks drew swift rebukes from members of the public, rival teams and even the NFL, which said in a statement that Butker’s views “are not those of the NFL as an organization” and that the league is “firm in its commitment to inclusion.”

But these comments were particularly troubling to those who knew him – or knew him – during his time as a rising star at Westminster and at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he studied at the university.

Representatives for Westminster, Georgia Tech and the Chiefs did not respond to requests for comment.

Allen, who said she knew Butker had “incredible talent and a bright future” in football when she watched him play as a high school student, called the speech “mind-boggling.”

“What he considers to be ‘traditional family values’ is actually an outdated and oppressive system in which men who look like him enjoy special, inherent privilege and power and everyone else has a leg up on neck,” she said.

A former Westminster teacher from Butker’s era, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, said the school’s older generation of teachers and parents may well have received the kicker’s comments .

“I think if you ask people of a certain generation, they might say, ‘Oh, well, sure, that was a perfectly acceptable, normal, right down the middle graduation speech.’” , did he declare. “But I can also imagine junior kids who are part of this new generation who would be appalled by this,” he added. “I mean, he actually did a pretty broad sweep of just about every demographic you could find – it was like a lawn sprinkler!”

Rhonda Schwartz, another parent of a former student who rubbed shoulders with Butker at Westminster, told The Daily Beast that she was not surprised by the overwhelming reaction to Butker’s comments. “This comment is made at a time when women have really worked hard to get their degrees and use them. So I can understand why women might feel that this success is downplayed.

Schwartz, a veteran journalist who spent decades working in a newsroom, said the issue felt personal to her because of her own experience balancing work and family obligations.

“Leaving my journalism career at CNN was the hardest decision I have ever made in my life,” she said. “But there is no one-size-fits-all solution… I believe women should be free to choose the path they want to take. And sometimes women work full time, sometimes they take time off, sometimes they come back. But I think it must be personal.

‘A slap in the face’

Westminster is not the only alma mater community outraged by Butker’s speech.

“I was a big fan of his when I was at Georgia Tech, we all were, because he’s a great talent,” said Carol Colatrella, a professor of literature and cultural studies at the university. . “So I guess that’s what really confuses me.”

Colatrella said the school, well known for its engineering and computer science departments, is making a concerted effort to recruit more women and create a more welcoming environment for them on campus.

“It goes against the image of an open and critical place that doesn’t just express a party line,” she added, calling Butker’s statements a “slap in the face” to graduated women. “I think if you interviewed people at Georgia Tech … most people wouldn’t agree with (his comments) either.”

Christopher Yandle, former assistant director of communications at Georgia Tech, wrote on Facebook that he worked with Butker as a student-athlete and that this behavior was “not what I saw 10 years ago “.

“To say I am disappointed by Harrison Butker’s comments is an understatement,” Yandle wrote. “But I think Harrison won’t like the way we’re raising our teenage daughter… She’ll never apologize for being a strong fucking woman because that’s what we raised her to do,” he said. he added.

Several members of the Georgia Tech and Westminster community noted that Butker’s mother, Elizabeth, is an accomplished medical physicist at Emory University, holding a master’s degree from Georgia Tech and a bachelor’s degree from Smith, the prestigious university for women. The former Westminster professor called Butker’s remarks “complete polarization from his own mother… who may not have gone through the graduation stage thinking about having babies.”

Elizabeth Butker has not commented on her son’s recent remarks, but said in a statement in 2020 that she was proud of “the man he has become.”

There are a string of other accomplished women in Butker’s life, from her younger sister, a physician’s assistant who studied at Weill Cornell Graduate School, to her aunt, a senior vice president at McGriff Insurance Company, Seibels & Williams. Reached by phone, his aunt, Alice Butker, said she was unable to attend her nephew’s speech because she was too busy at work.

Many of Butker’s fellow Georgia Tech graduates from the Class of 2017 have also gone on to achieve career success, including more than 50 women who also earned degrees in industrial engineering.

Maria Auslander, a senior consultant at business consultancy Slalom, not only graduated at the same time and with the same degree as Butker, but was also raised Catholic. She told The Daily Beast that she was “proud of the career I’ve built for myself” and that women “should have the right to choose how they spend their time in life, without judgment.”

“I’m proud of the women in my life who have chosen to pursue careers and I’m proud of the women in my life who have decided to become mothers. Both efforts are worth it,” she said in an email. email.

“In response to Butker quoting Taylor Swift, I will quote what I assume is her favorite book: “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” (Matthew 7:1).