Vanderbilt University’s Faculty Senate has unanimously approved a resolution asking Vanderbilt Chancellor Nick Zeppos to include protection of transgender students, faculty and staff in the university’s non-discrimination and anti-harassment policy.

The resolution, which was approved on Monday, May 5, is almost identical to one that was adopted by Vanderbilt Student Government and prompted by a petition drive by Vanderbilt’s student chapter of the Human Rights Campaign.

That petition netted more than 1,500 signatures and called for inclusive language protecting transgender students, faculty and staff.

The resolution approved by the Faculty Senate says that more than 147 U. S. college campuses prohibit discrimination based on gender identity, and calls on Vanderbilt administrators to include the language protecting those individuals in all university policies and statements.

There will be “five immediate key action steps,” Dean of Students Mark Bandas wrote in a press release that was posted on InsideVandy.com

Those steps include “opening an Office for GLBT Life; hiring a director of GLBT life; working with various campus groups, especially admissions offices and The Commons, to “ensure that members of the GLBT community understand that they are welcomed and valued members of our community”; moving to amend the non-discrimination policy to include gender identity and expression; and continuing to investigate additional recommendations made by the GLBTQI Student Issues Committee.”

“Inclusion is the foundation of an academic community,” Bandas said in the release. “We can best reap the benefits of the challenges of difference in an environment based upon mutual respect and appreciation.”

InsideVandy.com reporter Sara Gast wrote that “the changes will make Vanderbilt the first school in Tennessee and the Southeastern Conference to add ‘gender identity or expression’ in its non-discrimination policy.”

“We’ve been reluctant,” said Nick Wells in an InsideVandy.com story.  “Now we can really be a leader in Tennessee and the SEC.”

Wells, who just this past week graduated from Vanderbilt, was president and founder of Human Rights Campaign at Vanderbilt.

It was an alleged gay hate crime last September that has prompted Vanderbilt to move to take these actions. The crime occurred when two males (one an undergraduate and another a recent graduate of the Divinity School) were subjected to racial slurs in the Carmichael Towers West Quiznos and were then attacked outside the Towers.

InsideVandy reported that Vanderbilt Chancellor Nick Zeppos has expressed his support, saying in the report that “we cannot be satisfied with our progress until every member of our community feels safe, secure and valued at Vanderbilt.”