Victim's mother to speak

By Megan Finnerty
Features Editor

Judy Shepard did not want to be a celebrity.

Even after two years of public speaking and activism, the mother of two says she’s shy and still uncomfortable doing telephone interviews with the media.

But after her gay son, Matthew Shepard, was murdered in 1998 after leaving a bar near the University of Wyoming where he was a student, Judy became a high-profile activist for gay rights and an end to hate crimes.

Shepard will show a film about Matthew and discuss hate crime prevention at 8 tonight at the St. Thomas Aquinas Center, located across the street from Stewart Center. Before her speech, there will be a candlelight vigil to remember hate crime victims at 7:30 p.m. on the Purdue Memorial Union front lawn.

A resource fair with booths hosted by the Human Rights Campaign, Purdue Equality Alliance, Citizens for Civil Rights and others will follow Shepard’s speech in the Union East Lounge.

Bryan Szyper, a senior in the School of Science and co-founder of the Purdue Equality Alliance, one of the groups sponsoring Shepard’s visit, said he hopes her visit will raise awareness about gay rights and tolerance.

"Although we’ve come a long way, there’s still a ways to go," he said. "Just this week, we (the alliance) put up a window in Stewart Center to highlight Freedom to Marry Day and somebody put up fliers and defaced it. So, there’s still intolerance."

Since Matthew’s gruesome death at the hands of two Wyoming men, Shepard has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in support of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, appeared in several nationally televised public service announcements decrying hate crimes and has spoken to audiences nationwide.

Seventeen campus and area organizations are sponsoring the speech and raised more than $7,500 to pay Shepard’s fee, most of which will go to the Matthew Shepard Fund, which promotes hate crime awareness and gay rights.

Sara Solloway, director of programming for the Purdue Memorial Union, said her organization and others felt that the issue of hate crimes is an important one that needs to be addressed in the area.

"Even with last week, with the news of a swastika painted on the side of a house (in Lafayette), this issue refuses to go away," Solloway said.

Szyper was also excited about the number of campus and community organizations that unified to bring Shepard to the community.

"It was pretty cool to see the variety of businesses and groups who wanted to bring her here," he said. "I personally didn’t expect so many different types of groups to want to support her. I think the sheer number of groups in the area who helped shows that our community isn’t quite as conservative in their thinking as people might think it is. I think this shows that our community is moving forward."

Organizers expect busloads of gay rights supporters to arrive from all over the state.

St. Thomas Aquinas Center seats about 1,200 people and organizers expect to pack the room, so the speech will be televised live in a meeting room in the center’s basement.

A related event, sponsored by MTV, will be held at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in Stewart Center Room 302 where a representative from the Anti-Defamation League will host a discussion on hate crimes following the viewing of MTV’s "Anatomy of a Hate Crime — the Matthew Shepard Story."

City to raise hate crime awareness

Community should attend speech

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Features editor:
Megan Finnerty

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