On Thursday, Howard said prosecutors will announce at the arraignment for Aaron Price, 19, that they will seek the enhanced penalty that could add as much as five years to a sentence. Anyone convicted under the hate crime law also has to serve 90 percent of the sentence.

"Crimes targeting individuals based on sexual orientation -- which are especially egregious because of their clear intent to threaten entire groups far beyond the initial victim -- are unacceptable and will not be tolerated in Fulton County," Howard said.

The case has stirred the campus, with many students saying the Morehouse administration was slow in dealing with the situation and concerns about homophobia on campus.

Morehouse officials, in response, announced the formation of a panel to look at how the campus deals with diversity, tolerance and homophobia. The first three members of the panel were named Thursday.

They are: Peter Gomes, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church at Harvard University; Paul Burkgett, senior adviser to the president at the University of Rochester; and Caryn McTighe Musil, vice president of diversity, equity and global initiatives at the Association of American Colleges and Universities.

"The college will devote the high level of resources this issue deserves," school President Walter Massey said.

Price, a Morehouse sophomore, has been indicted by a grand jury on aggravated assault and aggravated battery charges in the attack.

The victim, Gregory Love, told police he wasn't wearing his glasses when he went into his dormitory bathroom to take a shower Nov. 3.

Love said he looked into Price's stall because he mistakenly thought Price was his roommate. Price, thinking it was a sexual advance, left the shower and retrieved a bat to beat Love, according to police reports. Love suffered a fractured skull and has been recovering in the Morehouse infirmary. Price was expelled from school and is free on $10,000 bail.

Gay and lesbian groups had been urging Morehouse officials to treat the issue as a hate crime, something Massey continually said he would leave to police to determine.

Local groups applauded Howard's action.

"It demonstrates to people the danger of oppression based on someone's identity," said Craig Washington, executive director of Atlanta's gay and lesbian community center. "It's one thing to not be comfortable with someone for who they are. It's quite another to brutalize them and to deny them their human rights because of who they are."

Massey also formed an internal task force on diversity and tolerance to coordinate new campus initiatives dealing with tolerance, harassment, anger management and diversity.

That group will include students, faculty and staff, as well as alumnus George Roberts, director of Communities of Color for HIV/AIDS at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"This panel is just one example of our ongoing efforts to openly and honestly address issues of homophobia and promote tolerance and appreciation of differences at Morehouse," he said.

Members of the Atlanta University Center gay and lesbian group African-Americans for Safe Space, Everywhere For All (ASSEFA) immediately offered a list of names of local and national gay and lesbian people they'd like to be included in both groups.