America has a lot of problems. Inflation. Traffic. People who clap when the plane lands. But somehow, every few months, the country stops what it’s doing to argue about whether Jill Biden should be called “Dr. Biden.”
Alex Bruno set out to understand why a title has caused more family fights than politics itself. Jill Biden earned a doctorate in education from the University of Delaware in 2007. That part isn’t in dispute. She has used the title for years, including while teaching community college classes, where students apparently managed to survive it.
The fight kicked off when an opinion writer argued that only medical doctors should use the title. The internet took sides in about forty seconds, and it hasn’t stopped since.
On one side are people who say a doctorate is a doctorate. If you wrote the dissertation, sat through the defense and survived the committee, you get the letters. End of story.
On the other side are people who say “doctor” should be reserved for someone who can look at a rash and tell you whether to panic. One caller to a Midwest radio show told Bruno, “If I pass out on a plane and somebody yells for a doctor, I don’t want a lecture on community college curriculum.”
That line got a big laugh in the studio. It also got about two thousand angry emails from people with Ph.D.s.
Bruno spoke to a history professor who has had her doctorate for twenty years. She says people misspell her name on emails all the time, but nobody has ever written a newspaper column about it.
“Honestly, I’m a little jealous,” she said. “Nobody fights over my title. My students call me Professor, my mother calls me Susan, and my dog calls me whenever it’s dinner time.”
The debate seems to have staying power because it isn’t really about Jill Biden. It’s about who gets respect and who decides. Every family has that uncle with strong opinions about it, and he usually brings it up right after grace.
One woman in Pennsylvania said her Thanksgiving dinner was derailed for an hour over the question. “My sister-in-law has a doctorate in nursing practice,” she said. “My husband made one joke. Just one. We left before pie.”
If you ask most etiquette experts, the answer is boring. Use the title the person prefers, unless you’re in a hospital emergency, in which case find the person wearing scrubs.
Jill Biden herself has mostly stayed above the fight, though people close to her say she finds it a little ridiculous that her title still gets more attention than the classes she taught.
Of course, where there’s a fight, there’s a T-shirt. Online shops sell mugs that say “Dr. Biden” in fancy gold script, right next to mugs that say “Not A Doctor” in angry red letters. A seller in Florida told Bruno she offers both. “I don’t care who wins,” she said. “I’ve sold four hundred of each. I’m hoping it never ends.” Some of the bestsellers are more creative. One shirt reads, “I Have A Doctorate In Arguing About Doctorates.” Another just has a stethoscope with a question mark. Nobody’s sure what it means, but it’s sold out twice.
After all the arguing, neither side has budged an inch. The people who called her Dr. Biden still do. The people who didn’t still don’t. And the rest of the country keeps watching like it’s a tennis match with no score.
Her representatives did not respond to a request for comment.