Judy and Dennis Shepard Bring Hate Crimes Message to Auraria
The Matthew Shepard Foundation founders spoke at CU Denver's Auraria campus, marking Hate Crimes Awareness Month with a call for action.
A Message That Still Resonates
Twenty-seven years after their son Matthew was murdered in a crime that became a national symbol of anti-LGBTQ violence, Judy and Dennis Shepard brought their message of remembrance and reform to the Auraria Campus this week. The Phoenix Center at Auraria, CU Denver’s resource center supporting LGBTQ+ students, hosted the couple as part of programming tied to Hate Crimes Awareness Month, according to CU Denver News.
The Shepards founded the Matthew Shepard Foundation in the wake of their son’s 1998 killing near Laramie, Wyoming — an attack that galvanized a national conversation about hate-motivated violence and ultimately helped drive passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, signed into federal law in 2009. More than two decades later, the couple continues to travel the country speaking to students, lawmakers and community groups about the lasting toll of hate crimes and the work still needed to prevent them.
Their appearance at Auraria placed that long-running advocacy squarely in a Denver context, giving students at one of the city’s largest higher education hubs a direct connection to a story that helped reshape American civil rights law.
Why the Phoenix Center Brought Them to Denver
The Phoenix Center at Auraria serves students across the three institutions that share the Auraria Campus — the University of Colorado Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver and the Community College of Denver — offering support, programming and advocacy for LGBTQ+ students and allies. Hosting the Shepards during Hate Crimes Awareness Month fits squarely within that mission, according to CU Denver News, which covered the event as part of the center’s recognition of the month.
Hate Crimes Awareness Month, observed each October, is intended to spotlight the scope of bias-motivated violence nationally and encourage reporting, education and prevention efforts. For a campus community that includes thousands of LGBTQ+ students, faculty and staff, bringing in speakers with the Shepards’ history offers both a history lesson and a current call to action — reminding students that the fight against hate crimes didn’t end with a single piece of federal legislation.
The Broader National Conversation
The Shepards’ advocacy work has always carried two threads: honoring Matthew’s memory and pushing for systemic change. The Matthew Shepard Foundation has spent years working with schools, law enforcement agencies and lawmakers to improve how hate crimes are tracked, prosecuted and prevented. Their visits to college campuses, including this stop at Auraria, are a central part of that outreach, giving students a firsthand account of how one act of violence rippled into national policy — and why the couple believes vigilance around hate-motivated crime remains necessary today.
National data on hate crimes has remained a persistent concern for LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, who point to continued reports of harassment and violence targeting people based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The Shepards’ visit to Denver arrives amid that ongoing national debate over how best to track, prevent and respond to bias-motivated offenses — a debate that touches college campuses, city governments and state legislatures alike.
Local Context: Denver’s Own Reckoning With Bias-Motivated Violence
The Shepards’ campus appearance comes at a moment when Denver itself has grappled with its own reports of bias-motivated attacks. Earlier this month, a bias-motivated incident in the Washington Park neighborhood drew local attention and concern from residents and advocacy groups. That case, which Denver police have investigated separately, is a distinct local matter from the Shepards’ visit and is not directly connected to their foundation’s work or the Phoenix Center’s programming. But its timing underscores why Hate Crimes Awareness Month programming carries particular weight in Denver this year — serving as a reminder that the issues the Shepards have spent nearly three decades addressing are not purely historical or national in scope, but continue to surface locally as well.
Denver city officials and community organizations have periodically renewed calls for stronger reporting mechanisms and victim support services following bias-motivated incidents, though responses to specific local cases remain a matter for law enforcement investigation rather than campus advocacy groups.
Campus Inclusion Efforts at Auraria
The Auraria Campus has built out LGBTQ+ student support infrastructure over the years through the Phoenix Center, which provides resources, safe spaces and educational programming for the shared student body of CU Denver, MSU Denver and the Community College of Denver. Hosting nationally recognized advocates like the Shepards reflects an ongoing effort by the center to connect campus-level inclusion work to the broader national movement for hate crime awareness and prevention.
For many students, the visit offered a rare opportunity to hear directly from figures whose personal loss helped shape federal civil rights law — a reminder that legislative change often traces back to deeply personal tragedy, and that continued advocacy requires sustained public engagement rather than a single moment of reform.
Looking Ahead
As Hate Crimes Awareness Month continues through October, advocacy organizations, campus groups and city officials across the Denver metro area are likely to keep highlighting both the history of hate crime legislation and the current state of bias-motivated incidents locally and nationally. The Shepards’ visit to Auraria adds Denver to the long list of communities where their message — rooted in personal loss but aimed at systemic change — continues to find an audience.
Their foundation’s continued travel schedule, and the steady demand for their perspective on campuses nationwide, suggests the conversation they started in 1998 is far from finished. For Auraria’s students, this week’s visit offered a direct link between that history and the ongoing, often difficult, work of building safer communities — on campus and beyond.