Earl Hall at Columbia University

Earl Hall, the center of student religious life at Columbia University in New York City, is a landmark of early LGBTQ+ campus organizing. In 1966, sophomore Robert Martin, using the name Stephen Donaldson, founded the Student Homophile League there after a meeting that included national gay rights leaders Frank Kameny and Barbara Gittings. It was the first gay student organization in the country. With the chaplain's support, the group met in Earl Hall, and by 1970 it had grown into the more activist Gay People at Columbia, known for popular Friday-night dances open to the wider community. Through the NYC LGBTQ Historic Sites Project, Earl Hall was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.