More Adventures on the Missed Amy Bishop Background Checks

Unless you have been living on another planet for the past year, you are probably aware that Amy Bishop was the University of Alabama, Huntsville,  college professor accused of shooting killing three of our colleagues and wounding three others.   Bishop was allegedly concerned she would be receiving bad performances reviews that would adversely affect her consideration for tenure.

What is particularly disconcerting is that background checks on Amy Bishop did not reveal that she had shot and killed her brother some 24 years ago.   It was considered an accident, as Bishop claimed she was cleaning the 12 gauge shotgun and it just went bang, putting buckshot through her brother’s chest.   Anyway, the killing, accident or not, failed to turn up in Bishop’s background check.  No problem there.  Everyone makes mistakes.  Accidents will happen.  Although sometimes such mistakes are not accidents at all, and in this case it was allegedly a prelude to a future shooting spree where people were killed by someone who had always craved attention.

I wrote  about Bishop and the failed background check in earlier articles.  One such article was entitled, The Amy Bishop Background Checks.    What particularly struck me, and I did write about it in the past, was that fellow academicians and psychologists lamented the rigors of tenured appointments, claiming the stress would cause psychological disorders and various disruptions.  Or something to that effect.    Poor college professors, tenured with a job for life, under so much stress.  As for the rest of the working world, where layoffs and terminations are a fearful if not periodic occurrence, are we to assume they have somehow miraculously avoided such stress?   Don’t think so.   I thought it was audacious at best and a matter of stone raving gall for anyone to attribute the shooting of innocent people to stress related to the tenured professor  process.  But what do I know?  I have only had to work for a living.

It appears that Bishop, who according to observations from people who knew her, did crave attention.  Well, now she is going to get more than she bargained for.  Not only is she charged for shooting the six people at University of Alabama, but according to the New York Times, Bishop will be charged with the murder of her brother, twenty four years earlier.   It would appear that justice for her brother is about to be served.

There are some critics who believe background checks actualize a certain bias and prevent people from finding employment.  That may be true.  But background checks make employers aware of their job candidate’s previous criminal history.   Forewarned, as they say, is forearmed.   There is always a first time for everything.  But as is the case with Amy Bishop, the unwitting University of Alabama invited her into to its faculty.   And three people died.   In this case, a background check would have and should have raised some eyebrows.  It’s a tragedy.  Whether or not it could have been ultimately avoided is a point of conjecture.    But there was a chance.

Now people are dead and the alleged killer is probably heading to prison.  That will be her tenure.  Life behind bars.