Our Founding Fathers established the organization with a goal of addressing the basic education needs of students of color on its campuses, especially Latinos. Proudly, the organization was able to facilitate effective change as a liaison between Latino students and university administration. In 1989, a time when HIV continued to sweep the country, the brotherhood lost Founding Father Alberto Rivera to complications derived from AIDS on on June 25, 1989. The event struck a chord with all Brothers, who were suddenly awakened to the harsh reality of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. From that point forward, in honor of Alberto Rivera and all others who have fought the battle against HIV/AIDS, the Brothers of Lambda Sigma Upsilon decided to dedicate themselves to the cause, by adopting a national philanthropy of supporting HIV/AIDS research and treatment programs.

Minority students, were not getting the attention they so desperately needed to succeed in their academic endeavors. During that time groups of students and protestors would conduct campus center sit-ins and take over university facilities such as the Livingston Library to make the university administration aware of their negligence. It is during these events where our founders met.In the spring of 1979, a group of students of Latino descent began talking about creating an organization that would represent and meet the needs of the Latino student population on campus, help students achieve their goals, and provide a sense of family to those away from home. These 20 men decided that a Social Fellowship would best provide a support group to other students and also provide a family away from their own. The excitement of these gentlemen grew daily, and they would conduct regular meetings to formalize the Fellowship. At the Final meeting, in Tillett Hall at Rutgers University, Livingston Campus on April 5th, 1979, Lambda Sigma Upsilon Latino Social Fellowship, Inc. was established. The official motto of the fellowship was "Latinos Siempre Unidos" (Latinos Always United), thus the acronym "LSU".