Calls to Remove Kansas City Chiefs Kicker Explode After Grad Speech

Kansas City Chiefs Harrison Butker upset more than just a few women online with the misogynistic commencement speech he gave at Benedictine College over the weekend. As of Thursday, more than 120,000 people had signed an online petition calling on the NFL team to give the kicker the boot.

“We demand accountability from our sports figures who should be role models promoting respect for all people regardless of their race, gender identity or sexual orientation,” the petition reads. “We call upon the Kansas City Chiefs management to dismiss Harrison Butker immediately for his inappropriate conduct.”

In the span of just a few minutes, Butker managed to rail against abortion, IVF, surrogacy, euthanasia, the LGBTQ community, and the “tyranny of diversity, equity, and inclusion” programs. He also encouraged the women in the crowd at the private Catholic college to forget the “diabolical lies” sold to them and to return to the “vocation” of bearing children and cooking in the kitchen instead of beginning careers related to their degrees. The strangest part is that Butker holds these beliefs in spite of the fact that his own success is in part due to his mother’s career as a medical physicist at the Emory University Department of Radiation Oncology.

But the growing chorus of people calling for Butker to face consequences for the remarks hasn’t translated into action by the NFL. Instead, the football league issued a lukewarm response, scarcely acknowledging Butker’s disturbing views.

“Harrison Butker gave a speech in his personal capacity,” Jonathan Beane, the NFL’s senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer, told People. “His views are not those of the NFL as an organization. The NFL is steadfast in our commitment to inclusion, which only makes our league stronger.”

Still, the chauvinistic messaging could stir up problems for another Chiefs player, team captain Travis Kelce, whose relationship with pop superstar—and self-described feminist—Taylor Swift has launched him and the football team into national celebrity status. Especially since Butker specifically called Swift out in his speech, quoting a line from her song “Bejeweled” that “familiarity breeds contempt.”