There's quite a kerfuffle with Jill Biden going around calling herself doctor after a receiving an education doctorate after a rather flimsy position paper and being called out for doing so by essayist and lecturer Joseph Epstein, who was then scrubbed form Northwestern's faculty where he was listed as an emeritus lecturer for daring to do so.
We can note that an Ed.D. is not the same as a PhD. The Ed.D. is a professional degree similar to the J.D. for lawyers, but instead it is for educational administrators.
Even most PhD recipients don't go around arrogantly demanding to be called doctors.
Indeed, Jill Biden's paper that got her the honorific is apparently sadly lacking in quality and accuracy and doesn't come close to the rigors required of a real PhD dissertation in terms of research or quality.
If I as a lawyer went around calling myself doctor, and insisting on being so addressed, people would laugh hysterically and quite properly so. Heck, I know a few lawyers with legal LLDs, and they're not even arrogant enough to insist on being called doctor, and they're lawyers!
Funnily enough, Joe Biden has recounted that she got the degree for vanity reasons to stop being called Senator & Mrs Biden and instead Senator and Dr Biden is rather revealing in terms of conceit.
In summary, Joseph Epstein was quite right to mock Joe and Jill Biden's attempt to inflate her credentials, apparently for both vanity and to arrogate authority and both mislead and impress where it was not deserved or earned.
3 comments:
As most veterans will tell you, those that demand respect seldom deserve it.
Hey Aaron;
its funny; the media trashed Melonia with a vitriol not seen in modern history, and they are now really softsoaping "Dr Jill".
Gray: Yes, demanding respect normally doesn't work out so well. Adding arrogance to the mix by being demanded to be called doctor and given deference when all you have is an Ed.D. degree doesn't help matters much.
MrGarabaldi: Yep, the media is heading back to their lapdog role with breathtaking speed.
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