Columbia has moved to dismiss hometown favorite anti-feminist Roy Den Hollander's class action lawsuit against the school. The University brings the snark in its filing, stating from that start that Hollander's claim "reads like a parody" and culminating in a section entitled "All of Hollander's Claims Fail Because He Does Not Allege Actionable Discrimination." Not only is Hollander more or less nuts, it seems that there's really no legal basis for his lawsuit.

For readers in need of a quick briefer, Hollander asserts that the women's studies department both "discriminates against male students and male alumni" and "violates the First Amendment establishment clause concerning religion." How? Unclear! But the motion is a nice rundown.

Firstly, Hollander insists that if Columbia is allowed to keep its feminist indoctrination program, it must create an equivalent men's studies curriculum, "a field he does not define and does not even claim exists as a coherent scholarly discipline." Furthermore, although Hollander did graduate from the Business School, he is no longer at the University, so it's tough to prove that he has any direct claim to damages:

To begin with, he is not a Columbia student and he has never taken, or attempted to take, a women’s studies course, let alone been the victim of any discriminatory conduct in such a class.

The school is also having none of Hollander's attempt to draw a parallel to Title IX:

Women were excluded from men’s sports teams; they lacked the athletic opportunities provided to men. Men are not excluded from women’s studies courses, and courses concerning the ideas and actions of men are not in short supply. The teaching of women’s studies no more requires the creation of a men’s curriculum than the existence of African-American studies courses would require the establishment of a white curriculum, or an institute of gay and lesbian studies would require an institute on heterosexuality.

And finally:

Hollander alleges no actual discriminatory conduct; he does not allege that men and women are treated differently at Columbia.

Yeeeah, that will sort of mess up your discrimination lawsuit.

The Spec has Hollander's reaction, in which he does little to prove that he is not, in fact, a parody of himself:

Women’s studies [programs] aid and abet murder. Where do you think all those lunatic female syndromes come from for excusing murdering incipient human beings, boiling babies, drowning their children, and killing their boyfriends or husbands?

Feminist Texts/Baby Boiling 101 is, without a doubt, the most underrated course at CU.

Stay tuned.