It's not only insulting and juvenile, it's irrelevant. I've met PhDs from the LSE who wouldn't know the difference between email and snail mail, but that's not material to a) how good they were at their jobs or b) whether or not they were good people.
The system is stupid, and hostile, and (in my opinion) totally self-defeating. And people -- normal, decent people -- will act like petty little tyrants in that sort of system. Isn't that sufficient to call them out? An asshole is an asshole, regardless of their eduction, no?
EDIT: Too, it may very well be material that you gave a different answer. There's only one word different between "landscape architect" and "naval architect", and those are significantly and materially different positions. How is J. Random Tyrant supposed to know that a is a member of the set b for all given a?
EDIT the second: Man, I was in love with the word "material", eh?
