Wall Street Journal columnist Joseph Epstein ignited a firestorm last December by daring to suggest “Dr.” Jill Biden should drop her ubiquitously used (at least by progressives) title because she’s not a medical doctor.
Biden’s husband, the current president, had once acknowledged that his wife only obtained her doctorate degree because she was a social bounder. “She said, ‘I was so sick of the mail coming to Sen. and Mrs. Biden. I wanted to get mail addressed to Dr. and Sen. Biden.’ That’s the real reason she got her doctorate,” Joe Biden once said.
Nonetheless, Epstein was widely denounced including by Northwestern University, where Epstein had taught English for 28 years, which showed its commitment to free speech by promptly erasing him from its website.
But this week we saw that Biden is not the only one who can get prickly about having her doctorhood challenged.
Tony Collins, a building contractor in North Carolina, was quickly axed from his spot on a citizen zoning board because he refused to comply with a resident’s wish to call her “doctor,” even though she’s not in the business of healing.
According to local media, Carrie Rosario, who holds a Ph.D. in public health and works as an associate professor at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, appeared during a Zoom zoning meeting on Monday to discuss a development near her home.
Collins then recognized her and addressed her as “Mrs. Rosario.” That touched off this exchange, per the Greensboro News & Record:
“It’s Dr. Rosario, thank you,” she said.
“If Mrs. Rosario has something …” Collins stated.
“Dr. Rosario,” she said again.
“I’m sorry,” Collins replied. “Your name says on here Carrie Rosario. Hey, Carrie.”
“It’s Dr. Rosario,” she said. “I (wouldn’t) call you Tony, so please, sir, call me as I would like to be called. That’s how I’m identified.”
“It doesn’t really matter,” Collins answered.
“It matters to me,” Rosario shot back. “Out of respect I would like you to call me by the name I’m asking you to call me by.”
“Your screen says Carrie Rosario,” Collins retorted.
“My name is Dr. Carrie Rosario and it really speaks very negatively of you as a commissioner to be disrespectful,” she replied.
The very next day, the City Council immediately elevated the issue beyond a silly dispute over one woman’s Bidenesque self-perceived self-importance.
Rosario is black, Collins is white. And so it became about race instead.
Two city councilwomen, both of whom are black, pushed for Collins to be removed.
One claimed he was using his “white privilege” by eschewing Rosario’s academic title, according to the News & Record, while the other called it “disrespectful” and “unacceptable,” and noted, as the newspaper paraphrased it, that black women “with higher education are not often accorded the advantages that white women with only high school degrees get.”
The paper apparently declined to ask that councilwoman how many white women with “only” high school diplomas are on the faculty at the UNC-Greensboro.
Yet to her credit, Rosario appears to be closer to a real doctor than Jill Biden will ever be. At least her career is devoted to improving public health, instead of merely advancing the cause of community colleges in Delaware.
But the assessment of Kyle Smith of National Review applies to both.
As he noted after the flap erupted over Epstein’s column, “You can tell someone is smarting from an inferiority complex when he insists on being addressed as ‘Dr.’ on the basis of holding an academic doctorate rather than being a physician. Ph.D. holders who have genuine accomplishments don’t make you call them ‘Doctor,’ …. Insisting on being called ‘Doctor’ when you don’t heal people is, among most holders of doctorates, seen as a gauche, silly, cringey ego trip.”
Still, it can empower you to get people thrown off zoning boards.
Check out our ‘Cancel Corner‘, a section we launched in February, where we report on the latest Cancel Cases and stories from around the globe.
