Writer Joseph Epstein made quite a fool of himself last week when he published an embarrassing op-ed in the Wall Street Journal trying to argue that Dr. Jill Biden wasn’t really a doctor because she doesn’t practice medicine.
“Jill Biden should think about dropping the honorific, which feels fraudulent, even comic,” Epstein wrote of the incoming first lady’s use of the title, which she earned when she completed her doctoral degree in education leadership from the University of Delaware.
Now, it’s been revealed that this isn’t the first time 83-year-old Epstein has embarrassed himself by writing an inflammatory op-ed on a topic he clearly knows nothing about.
In 1970, he published an essay in Harper’s Magazine in which he described LGBTQ people as “cursed” and “afflicted without apparent cure,” saying he wished “homosexuality off the face of the earth” and calling all gay people “n*ggers.”
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“There is much my four sons can do in their lives that might cause me anguish, that might outrage me, that might make me ashamed of them and of myself as their father,” Epstein wrote. “But nothing they could ever do would make me sadder than if any of them were to become homosexual.”
Newsweek reports:
His essay was denounced for its explicit homophobia shortly after its release. About one month later, in October 1970, members of the Gay Activists Alliance staged a sit-in demonstration at Harper’s headquarters in midtown Manhattan to protest the magazine’s decision to publish the piece, as well as its failure to issue an apology or subsequent essay countering Epstein’s views. The following year, Merle Miller, a former Harper’s editor, came out publicly in a lengthy personal essay for the New York Times Magazine that incorporated responses to Epstein.
Epstein has never apologized for his use of homophobic and racist language in his 1970 essay, but in 2015, he briefly touched on it in an op-ed published by the Washington Examiner in which he bemoaned “political correctness” and said the recent crackdown on bigotry “squashed discussion and in many realms of public life replaced ethics.”
As for Dr. Jill Biden, she’s not letting Epstein’s attacks on her education get the best of her. In a tweet yesterday, she wrote: “Together, we will build a world where the accomplishments of our daughters will be celebrated, rather than diminished.”
Together, we will build a world where the accomplishments of our daughters will be celebrated, rather than diminished.
— Dr. Jill Biden (@DrBiden) December 14, 2020
Related: Jill Biden is the modern version of a gay icon that Melania Trump wishes she could be
BaltoSteve
Doesn’t he have a book coming out? Oh.. Well that makes sense now. Who needs marketing when a sad and pathetic excuse of Cis White Male can attempt to mansplain that which he knows nothing.
Mister P
Why did The WSJ give him a forum for nonsense?
Oh yeah. It’s part of Rupert Murdoch’s alternate news empire.
BGreen1963
Actually The WSJ was bought by Huffpost which has now been bought by Buzzfeed. So the WSJ is just part of Tabloid Journalism, although it has been inaccurate and out of date for 40 years.
Creamsicle
An 83-year old is out of touch with the modern world and has antiquated views on gay people, minorities, and women? Is this really a surprise to anyone?
Also, how f’ing Boys’ Club douche is it to dismiss a woman’s PhD as comical? It’s willfully obtuse and he only did it to become the headline. Either that, or he’s really vapid and immature enough to make an asinine argument over gatekeeping the title of Doctor.
vancouverdoug
I actually found and read that piece of trash article from 1970. The first half has an accounting of all the times those dastardly homos tried to seduce him. I couldn’t stomach the rest reading the rest. It sounded like “the lady doth protest too much”
SiamSean
This relic has a BA earned in absentia in the 50’s… Apparently doesn’t embrace “continued education”, whereas Dr Biden obviously does. Obviously his opinion on anything is an uneducated one. Wondering why the WSJ keeps him on…
Phillip
Time for this weasel to retire. “Kiddo” indeed. Is he that jealous of her PhD that he needed to go off the rails? I’ve listened to that argument too many times before about who can use their Doctorate and who cannot. Baloney! A good friend of mine (who has his PhD) shut a person down when he was being “diminished” by being called: “Oh you’re only a PhD, doctor.” He calmly told the person: “WE are the Doctor’s who teach THOSE doctors.” 😉 That shut the other person’s mouth and made them consider what he’d just said! 😉
Another point is when you watch people graduate at universities, the PhD candidates receive their degrees BEFORE the MD and DO candidates. It’s always the academic degrees before the technical degrees.
Mister P
WSJ is not part of HuffPost or Buzzfeed
Openminded
Another good example of why we should not let the media inform or advise us. Sadly though, the media controls way, way too many people with their misinformation.
TheMarc
Let me guess, he doesn’t have a Ph. D, Ed.D, etc. So anyone else who has one is just looking for attention. I have no problem referring to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as Dr. I dare say few can measure their accomplishments against his. Epstein was just looking for an excuse and opportunity to attack Dr. Biden and at the same time vent his own personal intellectual insecurity under the guise of legitimate journalism. Pathetic.
Man About Town
Don’t worry; this relic will be gone soon.
Cam
Anybody surprised that a sexist is also racist and a bigot?
nunya
I have known many people in my professional career with doctorates who do not use the title or require others to address them as Dr. I have noticed that it is generally those with doctorates in education that do. Why is that?
Rich85
His glasses are really gay!!!
Phillip
Why is this little homophobic, racist weasel still employed?
This octogenarian is obviously losing whatever marbles he had, but I look at it as the veneer has come off, because of his age and we are getting to see the real person underneath after all the years of his poor conservative writing skills. Time for this little weasel to put down his “pen” and be forced to retire, e.g. fired.
nathan
First – he should know that people don’t ‘become homosexual’ it is not a choice .
Second – he obviously is to a historian – it is actually medical ‘doctors’ who have that honorific. Most medical doctors do not have a doctorate – that is why they should be called ‘medics’ rather than doctors. Of course, many medics may have doctorates and so are genuine doctors..
This man should understand that Dr Biden is a genuine doctor as she has a doctorate.
yup5hioop
Like Jordan Peterson there is a lot of nit and hyperbole picking about kinda obscure usually non issues from some uh stuck up academics – ironic to complain about a non medical Dr. At least in 1970 he was kicking down about something real. If that’s not projection IDK what is. Like the non existent Canadian word police the whole “Dr.” issue is pure trivial dribble.
myrdraal2001
He’s straight?!?