The Hindu : Front Page : In defence of a discipline

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Sunday, Oct 26, 2008
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In defence of a discipline

NEW YORK: Columbia University has urged a judge to toss out a lawsuit that claims a women’s studies programme is unconstitutional because there is no similar men’s programme. It said the lawsuit “reads like a parody.”

In papers filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the school said the judge should reject the demand in a lawsuit filed in August that women’s studies courses be prohibited.

Columbia noted that the lawsuit’s claim that the courses violate the constitutional rights of men was based on plaintiff Roy Den Hollander’s “personal hostility to feminism, his belief that feminism is a ‘fundamentally false belief system.’”

Mr. Hollander operates a website with a home page that reads, “Now is the time for all good men to fight for their rights before they have no rights left.”

After looking at Columbia’s court papers, Mr. Hollander said there was no humour in his lawsuit. “Women’s studies give women a carte blanche to do whatever their irrational whims tell them,” he said. — AP

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