A bigot's graduation speech sparked a walkout at a Catholic university in Australia
Joe de Bruyn spoke out against abortion, IVF, and gay couples. Students responded by walking out on him.
This newsletter is free, but it’s only able to sustain itself due to the support I receive from a small percentage of regular readers. Would you please consider becoming one of those supporters? You can use the button below to subscribe to Substack or use my usual Patreon page!
On Monday, a union leader receiving an honorary doctorate from Australian Catholic University turned his acceptance speech into a massive diatribe against abortion, IVF, and same-sex marriage, leading to a walkout by virtually all of the graduates.
ACU holds a graduation ceremony in October for students who completed their terms in the spring. Joe de Bruyn (rhymes with “prune”), the former national president of the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association, was invited to speak to the students, and it was all fine at first when he spoke about his achievements with the union. Everything went south after that.
He said that abortion was “the single biggest killer of human beings in the world, greater than the human toll of World War II” and a “tragedy that must be ended.”
Speaking of same-sex couples, he insisted that “Marriage between a man and a woman was instituted by God” and that “every society on Earth at all times” has recognized that marriage is between a man and a woman.
Also, referring to previous comments he’s made denouncing IVF, he argued it was “morally wrong to deliberately bring children into the world in an environment [in which they] would have no father.”
Once students realized what he was saying, they began walking out of the auditorium. One graduate even said—perhaps as a joke but who knows—that the only ones who stuck around were those recording the event to share with the media later.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Incredibly, even several of the people sitting on stage walked out on him. (There’s great video of it at The Age that I can’t embed here.)
De Bruyn didn’t seem bothered by any of it. Throwing the college under the bus, he said he had been invited to give this speech last November and that he submitted a draft of his speech a week in advance. So blame them, I guess.
“They knew what I was going to say, as to their attitude you’d have to ask them,” he said. “I don’t want to offend anybody but you can’t say ‘I’m sensitive’ and therefore you are not allowed to talk about some issue – it shuts down public debate.”
He said the topics he spanned were “perfectly logical” given he was being honoured by a Catholic university on his services to the Catholic church, describing abortion as a “catastrophic issue” that needed to be discussed.
He’s not entirely wrong about that. The Catholic Church does, in fact, promote these heartless and thoughtless views. A Catholic university is expected to hold the same beliefs. But as we know damn well in the United States, regular Catholics routinely hold positions on those issues that deviate quite a bit from the Vatican. It’s no different in Australia:
The head of the ACU’s National Tertiary Education Union branch, Yaegan Doran, said the speech brought “shame on the union movement” and the university.
“Abortion rights are fundamental to women’s rights,” he said. “Queer rights are not up for negotiation. Management’s choice to give him an honorary doctorate brings shame on the university.”
Does it, though? This is the same school that, last year, demanded that its librarians remove any rainbow flags. Honoring a bigot seems perfectly in line with the school’s values just like when Benedictine College invited NFL kicker Harrison Butker to deliver a commencement address in which he told female graduates they should aspire to becoming housewives. What else did you expect?!
That said, a graduation speech should always be focused on the students who did the work and deserve to be honored for it. De Bruyn committed the cardinal sin of making his speech all about his personal views. It was a speech designed to condemn people he hates rather than uplift the students whose careers lie ahead of them.
If he thought he would receive applause for defending Catholic values, he’s completely out of touch with the kind of students who might attend a Catholic school. Hell, ACU specifically encourages non-Catholics to attend.
(As someone who earned a master’s degree at a private Catholic university because it was the only option that worked with my schedule, I can say from experience that people attend these schools for reasons that go well beyond agreement with religious doctrine!)
A number of students have now spoken out against the decision to allow a bigot to hijack their big day and give him an award in the first place:
The St Patrick’s Student Association, ACU National Student Association, the Melbourne LGBTIQ+ Society and the ACU’s LGBTIQ+ Staff Ally Network said they stood in solidarity with those condemning awarding de Bruyn the doctorate.
“Graduation ceremonies should be a time for students to celebrate their achievements with their families, friends and staff,” they said in a joint statement.
“Instead, ACU Senate’s decision to afford de Bruyn a platform to voice his views on reproductive and LGBTIQ+ rights saw the ceremony become a harmful space, which forced the majority of students and staff in attendance to leave.”
Some of those students are planning to hold a protest outside ACU’s Melbourne campus today.
A spokesperson for the school acknowledged that officials saw a draft of the speech in advance and requested that de Bruyn modify it to focus on the “achievements of our students.” But they sure as hell didn’t require him to change anything—and he didn’t take any of their suggestions. That same ACU spokesperson said elsewhere that de Bruyn’s speech was “delivered in a personal capacity,” but no one should buy that. ACU invited him. ACU saw his speech in advance. ACU approved all of it. It’s not like his worst comments were ad-libbed.
One Christian writer wondered what any of this accomplished:
Hundreds of people walked away, a few staunch supporters remained, while others sat uncomfortably and embarrassed and required to continue with their duties. Did anyone leave with a better understanding of the Christian Gospel or of a life-affirming view of God?
Of course not. They walked away in disgust, and I sincerely hope they remember this speech when they’re considering whether or not to make any donations to the school in the future. If this guy is the model for what students should become, then their money is better donated anywhere else—including groups that support reproductive rights and LGBTQ+ equality.
Christians are some of the least compelling arguments for Christianity. I can't help but think some of those graduates were putting the Catholic Church in their rear-view mirrors on the way out of that auditorium. Good for them. There is no situation so bad it cannot be made worse by religion, and the Catholic Church is worse than most.
If it's unethical to bring a child into the world without a father in its life (IVF), then many abortions are, by his logic, ethical.