BY JOHN K. WILSON

The outrage machine against “cancel culture” has already been put into full motion with Joseph Epstein, an emeritus lecturer at Northwestern University who retired from the English Department almost 20 years ago but still manages to annoy people with his rather stupid op-eds in the Wall Street Journal.

The latest essay came this week, and Epstein climbed to a mighty pinnacle of stupidity by complaining that soon-to-be First Lady Jill Biden is referred to as “Dr.” because she is a college professor who holds a doctorate in education.

Epstein wrote: “Madame First Lady—Mrs. Biden—Jill—kiddo: a bit of advice on what may seem like a small but I think is a not unimportant matter. Any chance you might drop the ‘Dr.’ before your name?” According to Epstein, Dr. Biden’s title “sounds and feels fraudulent, not to say a touch comic.”

The reaction to Epstein’s essay has been, to put it mildly, rather negative. Wall Street Journal opinion editor Paul Gigot, who published Epstein’s essay, accused the Biden campaign of using “the big gun of identity politics to send a message to critics as it prepares to take power. There’s nothing like playing the race or gender card to stifle criticism.” Identity politics is not exactly a “big gun,” since sexism is something that Donald Trump and his fans on the right are often happy to embrace. Gigot denied that Epstein was being sexist: “Epstein’s point applies to men and women and his piece also mocked men for their honorary degrees.”

But Epstein proudly calls himself “sexist” in his latest collection of essays, declaring in one written earlier this year: “Sexist dog that I am, I am pleased to have been born male.”

One of Epstein’s former Northwestern students, Maureen O’Connor, reported: “He NEVER called on the women in class, and spent most class time talking about how amazing he is.” Epstein gave her a C on a paper that he admitted deserved an A because he suspected she couldn’t have written it.

Yes, Epstein’s essay was as sexist and anti-intellectual as it was just plain stupid. There was a similarly inane 2008 controversy over Barack Obama’s campaign correctly describing him as a “law professor” when he held the title of lecturer.

This is far from the first time that Epstein has shoved his foot fully up his mouth in pursuit of conservative values. In 1970, Epstein published a repulsive, homophobic rant in Harper’s magazine. Epstein’s loathsome anti-gay essay is noteworthy today as proof of how much our culture has advanced in 50 years, and as evidence that even hate speech can have a beneficial effect if it sparks a backlash in defense of equality.

This week’s more modest contribution by Epstein to the annals of ignorance has inspired a similar reaction, with many people speaking out and Dr. Biden herself tweeting, “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

Gigot added, “Northwestern University, where Mr. Epstein taught for many years, did its part by denouncing him in a statement and appearing to purge his emeritus listing from its website. This is how cancel culture works.” Is this really how cancel culture works? Because if it is, cancel culture doesn’t amount to much. Being criticized surely isn’t cancel culture, although I wish universities would refrain from it because nobody should care what a university thinks about a former professor’s opinion. And being unlisted from a webpage is not much of a damaging act, even though it is petty and dumb. You’ll find much clearer examples of cancel culture from Epstein himself, who proudly admits that he tried to persuade Northwestern’s president to have honorary degrees for Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers cancelled due to their “low quality.”

If Colbert should be cancelled for the alleged low quality of his work, why shouldn’t Epstein be cancelled for the low quality of his dumb essay? But I have yet to see anyone demand that Epstein should lose his status as “emeritus lecturer” at Northwestern, nor does anyone imagine for a moment that Northwestern would ever revoke it because academic freedom shouldn’t have an expiration date. That stands in sharp contrast to Bill Ayers, whose emeritus status was denied by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees when he retired in 2010 because of the controversy over his radical writings long before he became an academic. That sounds a lot more like cancel culture than anything Northwestern has done to Epstein.

Indeed, the only reason why a long-retired employee’s opinions could cause controversy at Northwestern is because Epstein insisted upon receiving the title of “emeritus” rather than simply referring to himself as “retired.” The “about the author” note for Epstein’s newest book does not use the title “emeritus lecturer,” but more misleadingly implies that Epstein still works at Northwestern: “he has taught English and writing at Northwestern University for many years.” If Epstein doesn’t want Northwestern criticizing him, perhaps he should try harder to avoid pretending that he still works there.

I’ve never heard of Epstein’s “emeritus lecturer” status before, but I like the idea. The Northwestern Faculty Handbook notes, “An eligible faculty member who desires emeritus status asks the school dean to make such a recommendation to the provost.” The Handbook specifically says that adjuncts such as Epstein would rarely be given emeritus status: “Because they typically have significant professional responsibilities beyond the University, parttime and adjunct faculty will generally not have achieved the record of service specifically to Northwestern necessary to merit appointment to emeritus status.”

I disagree. Lecturers, like all adjunct faculty off the tenure track, part-time or full-time, deserve the same privileges and protections for academic freedom enjoyed by their tenured colleagues, including the opportunity for emeritus status when they retire (a status that should be automatically granted, and not at the discretion of top administrators). I also think that academic freedom extends to retired faculty, who should not be arbitrarily removed from websites simply because they’re controversial. Since Northwestern removed Epstein’s webpage over this silly essay, current faculty and students may rightly wonder what retaliation they could receive if they publish something controversial.

But let’s get back to Epstein’s views on honorifics, which is the unimportant topic at hand. It is a bit strange that a man who denounces honorary titles so completely would go to the effort of requesting an honorary title such as “emeritus” for himself. If Epstein wants so badly to be called “emeritus,” why shouldn’t Jill Biden get to accurately call herself “Dr.”? This looks like a case of the pot calling the kettle pretentious.

You don’t need a doctorate in psychology to figure out that Epstein (that rarest of all faculty members, one with no graduate education) is carrying a lifetime of envy and resentment at all the credentialed professors he thinks are dumber than he is but who nevertheless received the honorifics and benefits he was denied. Epstein is annoyed that faculty might refer to themselves as “Dr.” merely because they’ve done the hard work of earning a doctorate. To understand why, consider how many hundreds of times Epstein has been called “Dr.” by students or interlocutors, putting him in the uncomfortable position of either publicly humiliating himself by announcing that he has no Ph.D. or remaining silent and perpetuating an implicit fraud about his credentials. There’s even a webpage about his 2017 speech at James Madison University with the headline “Dr. Joseph Epstein.” It’s a lot easier to denounce the value of every doctorate, especially when you haven’t got one and must keep explaining this.

I prefer the culture common at the University of Chicago (where Epstein obtained his B.A.) that eschewed calling anyone “Dr.” and (in theory, if not practice) put everyone on a level playing field where ideas, not titles, matter most. I’m also not fond of people who wear their doctorate like a fashionable accessory. But consider the position of Jill Biden, too, someone who has spent a lifetime being called “Joe Biden’s wife” while working hard to establish a career for herself as a college professor and earning a doctorate to make it possible.

Dr. Biden’s desire to remind people that she has a doctorate and a job is not because she’s an egomaniac, but because so many men seem to forget or dismiss this fact. Even more than Mr. Epstein has witnessed the unearned elitism of idiots with doctorates, Dr. Biden has witnessed the unearned elitism of arrogant stupid men like Epstein telling her to stand by (or more precisely, behind) her man, kiddo, and stop pretending to be a serious college professor.