The LA Times takes a cheap shot at Dr. Jill Biden.
February 02, 2009 11:05 am ET by Jamison Foser
In an article portraying Jill Biden - who is teaching at a community college in Virginia, though she could doubtless land a gig at Georgetown or GW if she chose - as pompous, the Los Angeles Times falsely suggests her use of the title "Doctor" is fraudulent.
Under the sub-head "The vice president's wife holds a doctorate in English -- but she likes to use the prefix that most people reserve for medical doctors," the Times explains:
In 2007, at 55, Jill Biden did earn a doctorate -- in education, from the University of Delaware. Since then, in campaign news releases and now in White House announcements, she is "Dr. Jill Biden." This strikes some people as perfectly appropriate and others as slightly pompous, a quality often ascribed to her voluble husband.
Who are these "others" who find Jill Biden "slightly pompous"? The Los Angeles Times won't say.
The paper described St. Louis University professor Joel Goldstein as seeming "mildly amused" when told Biden likes to be called "Dr" - but it quoted him saying "Occasionally someone will call me 'doctor,' and when that happens my wife makes fun of me a little bit. But nobody thought it was pretentious to call Henry Kissinger 'Dr. Kissinger.'"
Hmmm... that seems to undermine the idea that Biden is being "pompous." Indeed, it suggests that the LA Times is mocking an accomplished woman for using a title that is frequently used, without controversy, by accomplished men.
Next, the Times turns to "Amy Sullivan, a religion writer for Time magazine" for comment. But Sullivan doesn't really support the Times' claim that Biden is "slightly pompous," either - she is quoted saying "Ordinarily when someone goes by doctor and they are a PhD, not an MD, I find it a little bit obnoxious. But it makes me smile because it's a reminder that she's her own person. She wasn't there as an appendage; she was there as a professional in her own right."
Then the Times quoted the head of the Washington Post's copy desk saying his newspaper only refers to medical doctors as "doctor." But he doesn't criticize Biden or call her pompous, either. Finally, the Times quoted a USC professor who made the point that women academics are often addressed by their first name while male colleagues are called doctor. Again, this is not a quote that supports the Times' suggestion that Biden is "pompous" - instead, it is another reminder that we probably wouldn't see such an article about Dr. Henry Kissinger.
It gets worse.
In the middle of an article suggesting that Jill Biden is wrong to refer to herself as "doctor," the Times offers this passage:
Joe Biden, who was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is expected to travel widely in his new job. But he may need to tone down the Dr. Jill Biden stories, should he find himself in Germany with his wife.
Last year, according to the Post, at least seven Americans (with degrees from places like Cornell and Caltech) were investigated for the crime of "title fraud" for calling themselves doctor on business cards, resumes and websites. Only people who have earned advanced degrees in Germany or other European Union countries may legally call themselves that.
German investigations of "title fraud" don't have anything to do with Jill Biden. Nobody - nobody except the LA Times, that is - is suggesting that Jill Biden is guilty of "fraud." And Germany doesn't prohibit non-medical doctors from using the title doctor; it prohibits people who didn't earn their doctorate in Germany or the EU to call themselves doctor. Again: this has absolutely nothing to do with Jill Biden. It's just a cheap shot; a clumsy effort to suggest there is something fraudulent about her use of the title "doctor," even though there is nothing wrong with her doing so - by American standards or German.
The Los Angeles Times' sports pages routinely contain references to the owner of the LA Lakers as "Dr. Jerry Buss." The next time the Times wants to call someone pompous for going by "doctor" despite lacking a medical degree, maybe the paper should take aim at their hometown -- male -- sports executive rather than taking cheap shots at a community college professor.
02 Feb 2009
09.05 PST Los Angeles
I should think it not beside the point to remind Ms Abcarian (and esp. her editors) that it was the *medical* profession that borrowed the term from academe, not the other way around: 'doctor' is from Latin, 'teacher.'
==Mel Strom
Gotta love the double cheap shot by suggesting that it is her husband who is generally considered pompous. Oh noes!!!eleventy11!!! not Jill too!!!!!!!!!
Interesting to note that the quotes make clear that this reporter sought responses to the fact that Dr. Biden goes by her title. Pathetic, really, and no wonder mainstream journalism is circling the drain.
I am pretty annoyed by this article. Mostly, because my wife, who is also getting her PhD in English, looks up to Jill Biden, because she took her higher education, and is working in a community college, where more people need better teachers. My wife, doing the same thing. Also, when my wife gets her PhD, don't think that she won't be using Doctor in her official title. These women, and other academics, earned it, through lots of hard work, and most of time, through more years of schooling than medical doctors.
Jill Biden earned it. She can use her title if she wants to. She's got the diploma, and the hood, to prove it.
Very obnoxious.
Amy Sullivan, unsurprisingly, thinks it's "obnoxious" for Ph.D.'s to want to be referred to with the honoric "Doctor"? WTF? That's really an appalling attitude to have.
I teach at a major university in the South, and our students traditionally address faculty members as "Doctor." I think this is quite common in the region, on the border of which Delaware stands, and also in schools such as community colleges where it is most important to define the authority of the teacher. If you think about it, this regional aspect to the title probably helps explain why we have just suffered through years of "Dr. Rice," which isn't I don't think a typical locution at Stanford, as the LA Times pointed out years ago--NOT!
It is true that it isn't the done thing for academics to refer to themselves as "doctor" when they, say, make a plane reservation, but that is mainly because of the possibility of being mistaken for a medical doctor.
The kind of bone ignorance I expect from a modern journalist. My wife got her Phd in Education after 10 years of teaching school by day and taking graduate work at night. Like every other Phd school teacher or principal I know of, she uses the title and people respect her for it.
The academics around Chicago sometimes refer to MDs as "body mechanics." They have extraordinarily rigorous training and an amazing skill set, but they aren't intellectuals. They can only gain that rank by doing research, sharing it with their peers, and thereby contributing some small bit of knowledge to the collective wisdom of western civilization.
At my wife's graduation ceremony, the Phd candidates were in the front row, then came several rows of masters candidates, then the doctors, and finally the dentists. Good people, most of the dentists I've known, but they aren't scholars and don't pretend to be. Most of them, however, are smart enough to keep up on the literature generated by the real scholars in their field. They have that much respect for education, apparently more than people with BAs in journalism.
I've noticed that the NY Times rarely calls Ph.D.s "Dr" but always calls MDs "Dr.". I think that is bad form or their part.
JKUBIE3168 has got it right. I spent 31 years doing R&D, and was always addressed as 'Dr.' in formal settings involving research. I never use the honorific )except when I'm trying to get my feckless senator (Specter) to pay a bit more attention). I would expect Jill Biden to use the title in matters involving her professional life, but, unlike Kissinger or Rice, she is not acting as a professional when she is being referred to as Biden's wife, and she shouldn't be introduced as Dr Biden in those circumstances.Nevertheless, the LA Times is just another example of the loudly trumpeted criticism about meaningless things that sadly seems to be in vogue in criticizing the Obama administration
As for Germany, when I post-doc'd there 40 yrs ago, your surname got changed on your passport when you earned a Ph.D. If you were Schultz before, you became Dr. Schultz, and your wife became Frau Dr. Schultz. Technically a woman with a Ph.D would have been Dr. Dr. Schultz, too, I guess, if she had taken her husband's name. Of course, even when I retired in 2005, my German colleagues did not know the given names of the people who reported to them. Everyone was addressed at work as Dr., Herr or Frau / Fraulein.
Funny story: I have a PhD. I am, therefore, a "Doctor." I've had students tell me, "You know, you should make us call you 'Doctor' because you busted your ass to get there."
What is a valid doctorate to the LA Times?
For those who are interested, the Washington Post article about American PhDs getting in trouble in Germany for using the title "doktor" can be be found at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/13/AR2008031304353.html
I'm not sure what point the LA Times article is trying to make in introducing the German situation into their Jill Biden bashing article since Germans with non-medical doctorates are always addressed as "Doktor." Also, as the Washington Post article points out, the outdated German law restricting the use of the title "doktor" to those with a degree from a German university (now amended to include any EU university) originated in the Nazi era, and there is now a proposal by German education ministers to change the law so that PhDs from the top 200 American universities can also legally use the title "doktor" in Germany. If that takes place, that would no doubt include Dr. Biden.
I'd prefer that we reserve the appellation of "Doctor" for physicians, precisely because in the current state of affairs, the title is bestowed so arbitrarily. E.g., Dr. Kissinger, Dr. Laura Schlessinger , but probably not Dr. Joshua Micah Marshall (who has a PhD in history).
But much as I'd like it, that clearly isn't the standard, so this shot at Mrs Biden is indeed as gratuitous as has been suggested here.
I dunno. The article isn't really a bash, but mainly points out that Dr. Biden is a pioneer Second Lady and she is working because she wants to. She is employed in academia and is appropriately using her title to separate her professional life from her public life. And, since this is unique, it's worthy of a lightweight story such as this.
I simply don't see the article as mockery or in any way demeaning. In fact, one could interpret it as admiring her accomplishments and using her title in a perfectly acceptable way. Certainly her peers quoted in the article have no problem with it. (I agree that the German arc is unnecessary, but I bet the author stumbled onto it during research and couldn't let go of it; it's more a smack at Germany than anything else.)
You go, Dr. Jill!