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ALLIES' mission is to raise awareness of, provide education about, and discuss issues of importance to the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) and Allied communities; to make it known that it is okay to be straight and committed to education about and the advancement of LGBT causes; and to inform the greater Penn population that LGBT issues do not exclusively affect the queer community, but are of central importance to all at the University of Pennsylvania.
In the fall of 1998, Matthew Shepard, a young man from Denver, Colorado, was brutally beaten and tortured because he was gay. He later died from complications due to this assault.
The day after Penn's on-campus candlelight vigil in his memory, three first-year students wanted to know how they could show organized support for the LGBT community and helf to fight homophobia on Penn's campus and in the community at large.
With the assistance of the University's LGBT Center, these students founded ALLIES.
In the years since its inception, ALLIES has grown into a SAC-funded organization, committed to educating and raising awareness within the Penn community about all facets of LGBT life.