The University of Georgia School of Law has announced plans to fund an LGBTQ scholarship program starting next year.

"Thanks to gifts from a diverse array of supporters," the law school said, it is creating "an endowed scholarship in support of LGBTQ diversity" called the Stonewall Equality Scholarship Fund.

The scholarship is intended to benefit "students who will contribute significantly to the diversity of the law school student body because they have demonstrated leadership in matters of concern to lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender individuals, or they have worked to build or are able to describe how they plan to advance LGBTQ persons' full equality or dignity during their careers as lawyers."

The first scholarship recipient will be named next year.

"The School of Law is grateful to the many supporters for their contribution to the Stonewall Equality Scholarship Fund," law school Dean Peter B. "Bo" Rutledge said. "This pledge to diversifying the legal profession and helping future lawyers and leaders advances our shared commitment to the values of diversity, inclusion and belonging in the legal profession."

The Red & Black, the University of Georgia's student newspaper, reported that IP law professor Joseph Miller, the first tenure-track LGBT faculty member at UGA Law, has been working on a campaign for the scholarship since 2015.

"I think it's enormously important to support future lawyers who want to devote their professional energy to working to advance equality, including LGBT equality," Miller told the Red & Black. "It helps bring about the kind of social change we'd like to see and it signals to people in the community that these are important things that we value."