In a screed against cancer doctors, “men’s rights” attorney Roy Den Hollander saved some venom for a particular woman judge.
“All of this was a nice stressful addition since it occurred in the middle of preparing for oral argument in a federal case before a lazy and incompetent Latina judge appointed by Obama,” he wrote.
Den Hollander did not name the judge, but he might as well have, for he says the proceedings were held on Dec. 4, 2018. That is the date that he had a 90-minute hearing in Newark federal court before Judge Esther Salas.
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Salas is indeed a Latina and she was appointed by President Obama in 2010. But she is the very opposite of lazy and incompetent.
Den Hollander himself got a demonstration of that after that very hearing.
The case was Kyle-Labell v. Selective Service System. Elizabeth Kyle-Labell was a young woman who had repeatedly attempted to register online for the draft, only to be automatically barred when she clicked “female” for her gender. Den Hollander had filed suit on her behalf.
Previously, Den Hollander had waged six other legal battles against such supposed gender inequalities as “ladies’ nights” and women’s studies at a university when there were no men’s studies. His half-dozen efforts had ended with a half-dozen dismissals. And the government argued at the December 2018 hearing that Salas should do the same with the Kyle-Labell matter.
Salas instead responded with a 31-page, meticulously reasoned, and well-documented opinion reaching a conclusion that should have left Den Hollander forever singing the judge’s praises.
“Defendants’ motion to dismiss must be denied,” Salas wrote.
Thanks to Salas, the case remained viable even as Den Hollander’s struggle with cancer seemed to grow more desperate.
In 2019. Hollander contacted Nick Gravante, an attorney he had worked with three decades before at Cravath, Swaine & Moore. Gravante had gone on to become one of the nation’s top litigators and a managing partner at Boies Schiller Flexner, which is well known for its socially conscious pro bono work, notably on behalf of gay marriage.
Den Hollander said he thought Gravante’s firm might be interested in taking over a case involving gender equality and the draft. Den Hollander reported that the case had surmounted a big hurdle when the judge denied a motion to dismiss.
“But unfortunately he was dying of terminal cancer,” Gravante recalled Den Hollander telling him.
Gravante liked the case’s underlying principle, which he viewed not as men’s rights but as full gender equality; females should register for the draft just as males do.
“If people want to be equal under the law, they have to be equal under the law,” Gravante said. “It’s the kind of lawsuit that we do.”
He added, “We think we are on the side of right.”
Gravante agreed to take over the case with no further involvement by Den Hollander. Gravante filed an amended complaint and brought in a team of stellar young lawyers, all women, none of them remotely lazy, all supremely competent.
One might have thought Den Hollander would have taken comfort in seeing his one promising suit in good hands. But he was never so much about men’s rights as misogyny and all the wrongs he imagined he had suffered at the hands of women.
Den Hollander convinced himself that he would have already gone on to glory at the Supreme Court had Salas been more aggressive in casting aside the government’s repeated efforts to scuttle the case.
“Just unbelievable, by now we should have been knocking on the U.S. Supreme Court’s door, but lady unluck stuck us with an Obama appointee,” Den Hollander wrote in another of the many screeds he posted, which were first reported by NBC News.
He continued, “Female judges didn’t bother me as long as they were middle age or older black ladies. They seemed to have an understanding of how life worked and were not about to be conned by any foot dragging lawyer. Latinas, however, were usually a problem—driven by an inferiority complex.”
He reported that he had “checked her bio.”
“It was the usual effort to blame a man and turn someone into super girl—daddy abandoned us, we were indigent, which means they lived off of the taxpayer, but we overcame all odds,” he said of what is in fact a true American success story.
He was now out of Kyle-Labell and he had no problem naming the judge as he went on, “Right, affirmative action got her into and through college and law school. Salas worked as an associate in an ambulance chasing firm doing basic criminal work. Left that firm to work as a public defender in the New Jersey District Court representing lumpen proletariat ne’er-do-wells.”
He was not done, saying Salas affiliated herself with “politically correct organizations trying to convince America that whites, especially white males, were barbarians, and all those of a darker skin complexion were victims.”
The loser lawyer then demeaned himself as he sought to demean the highly respected jurist by saying, “She did, however, have one accomplishment—high school cheerleader.”
He said she is “apparently scared of making a decision one way or the other. If she ruled draft registration unconstitutional, the Feminists who believed females deserved preferential treatment would criticize her. If she ruled that it did not violate the Constitution, then those Feminists who advocate for equal treatment would criticize her. Either way it was lose-lose for Salas unless someone took the risk of leading the way.”
His delusion was nearly complete.
“Throughout the history of the human race, who has been willing to take the lead—men. True, there were always a few brave females willing to go in front, but not many. Salas clearly wanted to further her career by moving up the judicial ladder to the Court of Appeals or maybe even the Supreme Court. After all, there was now a Latina seat in the form of Sotomayor on the Court.”
There it was. He would have ended his life with a victory in the Supreme Court were it not for Salas wanting to be the second Latina Supreme Court justice.
The delusion allegedly turned deadly on Sunday evening, as Den Hollander arrived at Salas’ home with a FedEx envelope and a Walther .380 automatic pistol.
Police say Den Hollander used the envelope to convince Salas’ husband that it was a delivery. The husband, Mark Anderl, started toward the front door, but their ever energetic and helpful 20-year-old son, Daniel Anderl, got there ahead of him.
The gunshots brought Salas dashing up from the basement. She got there to see her son with a fatal bullet to the heart. Her husband was critically wounded.
All that needs to be said about Den Hollander ever again is that he had fled and later shot himself after pulling to the side of the road in upstate New York.
The husband is expected to survive, but he and Salas have lost their only child.
There are no words.
