Though i am inclined to agree with you i do think this distinction might be appreciated in the context. What i mean is, when a person is starving he doesn't really care if his food is from a 2 hat or a 3 hat restaurant.

Having said that, i view programming as a tool which is to be used for solving problems. But i would expect a CS major who wants to work in the industry to be really proficient with his or her tools, and that includes programming.

A CS Researcher might be able to get away without any knowledge of programming in a university setting, but could be out of place in the real world unless he focuses on a speciality which is in high-demand.

I once had the experience of sub-contracting work to one of the best universities in my country and found that both the students and the professors involved with the project were not familiar with coding. Thankfully i could train them on coding with minimal effort since they had a background in rigorous mathematics.