The week of Oct. 5, The University of Mississippi celebrated its second annual ALLIES Pride Week. Established in 2012 by former Associated Student Body President Kimbrely Dandridge, the primary goal of Pride Week is to recognize the contributions of the LGBTQ community for what they bring to the university in terms of diversity and individual leadership.
The acronym LGBTQ stands for “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer.” Pride Week events included distribution of purple ribbons for students to wear in support of the LGBTQ community, as well as the opportunity to talk to members of The Pride Network, an organization that advocates education and understanding for people of all sexual orientations.
This year’s Pride Week was considered especially significant in light of the events surrounding the performance of “The Laramie Project” earlier this month at which several students heckled performers with homophobic slurs.
“The Laramie Project” tells the story of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard, who was tortured and beaten to death by homophobic classmates in 1998.
In response to calls for punishment, both university officials and students said education of the uninformed was of paramount importance to prevent anything of this nature from happening again.
An important part of Pride Week and the response to “The Laramie Project” is Ally training. ALLIES is a program coordinated by the University Counseling Center and Outreach Programming in conjunction with the Pride Network. Those who wish to be considered part of the Ally network are asked to attend a training session during which they are educated on the challenges faced by sexually diverse students, including the ordeal of “coming out” to their parents. Olivia Cooper, sophomore chemical engineering major and community assistant, is one such Ally, and she also attended the Oct. 1 performance of “The Laramie Project.”
“A big part of training are exercises that really show the difficulty in coming out and life after that,” Cooper said. “I feel like if those in attendance during that performance had been through Ally training, they never would have made those remarks, or certainly would have thought twice about it.”
Many residence halls are encouraging their community assistants to undergo Ally training to encourage increased sensitivity to the varied needs of their residents. At present, all but two CAs at the Residential College are certified Allies. Nicholas Boullard, community assistant and senior biochemistry major, expressed his desire for all of the CAs in the Residential College to complete Ally training.
“It’s about making the university’s climate safer for all students, regardless of sexual orientation,” Boullard said. “It’s my belief that education is the only way to decrease the chance of what happened at ‘The Laramie Project’ from happening again.”
In addition to Pride Week, the Pride Network will be hosting the Breaking Silence Symposium April 19 and 20 next semester. April 19 will also mark the 17th annual Day of Silence to call for an end to harassment and bullying of LGBTQ students. Pride Network meetings are held on the first and third Fridays of each month at 5:30 p.m. in Barnard Hall.
