University Union Speakers Board hosts visit by Judy Shepard, mother of murdered hate-crime victim

University Union Speakers Board hosts visit by Judy Shepard, mother of murdered hate-crime victimApril 03, 2002Blythe Copelandblcopela@syr.edu

The University Union Speakers Board at Syracuse University is hosting “The Legacy of Matthew Shepard” by Judy Shepard at 7:30 p.m. April 8 in the Schine Student Center Goldstein Auditorium. Tickets are $5 for the general public and $3 with an SU I.D., and are available at the Schine Box Office, 443-4517. The event is co-sponsored by the University’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Resource Center

Judy Shepard is the mother of Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student, who was brutally attacked in October of 1998, tied to a fence post and left for dead. He died five days later in a local hospital. Shepard’s death spurred a spontaneous, unprecedented outcry from coast to coast. The incident galvanized millions of people and focused the nation’s attention on the growing epidemic of hate crimes.

Since her son’s murder, Judy Shepard has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in support of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, appeared in two Human Rights Campaign public service television spots and has worked with the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and with Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG).

Shepard’s visit to SU comes on the heels of the broadcast of two television films related to the Matthew Shepard story. “The Matthew Shepard Story,” starring Stockard Channing and Sam Waterston, aired on NBC on March 16. “The Laramie Project,” a film about members of a New York City theatre company who go to Laramie, Wyo., to research how such a brutal crime could occur in that small town, is currently showing on HBO.