Harvard announced today that it would amend its non-discrimination policy to protect "gender identity," following growing pressure from undergraduates to safeguard the rights of transgender students and staff.

"Amending the non-discrimination policy to include gender identity is intended to reaffirm that all members of the Harvard community, including those who are transgendered, should be judged on their own merits, not their status," said University spokesman Joe Wrinn.

Harvard joins 52 other universities, including Brown and Cornell, in amending its policy.

The decision was announced this afternoon to members of the Transgender Task Force (TTF), an undergraduate group that has advocated for the inclusion of gender identity since 1997, in a meeting with Robert Iuliano, the University's General Counsel.

According to students at that meeting, Iuliano said that the Corporation, the University's highest governing board, had agreed to add gender identity to the non-discrimination policy at their last meeting.

Nearly 30 University and community groups co-sponsored an Undergraduate Council bill last Sunday to urge the administration to include “gender identity and expression” in its non-discrimination policy.

"I think that it's been the result of students' hard work over the past nine years," said Undergraduate Council representative Eric I. Kouskalis '07, who sponsored the UC bill. "The Trans Task Force has really been working very hard behind the scenes."