I counter your citation of Albert Einstein with that of Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe and human rights violator. Mugabe has been awarded honorary degrees from numerous institutions, including the University of Edinburgh, UMass Amherst, and Michigan State University. (These institutions all made news by subsequently revoking the honorary degrees.)
How about the 57 honorary degrees awarded to Bill Cosby? (About half have since been rescinded.)
Or the honorary doctorate awarded to Mike Tyson (boxing champion and high school dropout)?
In any event, I certainly have no issue with universities giving out awards, prizes, medals, or the like. I just think it’s hypocritical of them to be handing out fake degrees. It makes a mockery of higher education, and is no better than the practices of diploma mills. In either case, the “degrees” in question are unearned and completely disconnected from a course of study or evidence of academic achievement.
And while Einstein and Mugabe represent extremes of worthiness and unworthiness for an honorary degree, the majority seem to go to wealthy donors and well-connected people. This was evidently the basis for the first honorary degree that was awarded in back in 1478, and little has changed since, other than the skyrocketing of the number of honorary degrees awarded in recent years.
This same article also notes that in reviewing the degrees awarded by several Ivy League schools, “honorary degrees are disproportionately awarded not to influential scientists, engineers, or historians, but to pop culture icons, big-name political figures, and wealthy businessmen.”
:rolleyes: This same article notes that many recipients of honorary degrees do actually trumpet their honorary doctorates and insist on the title of “Dr.” even though they are officially discouraged from doing so.