When I first heard of the shooting deaths of three people, two of them faculty members and one staff member, and the wounding of three others at the University of Alabama Huntsville at the hands of neurobiology professor Amy Bishop, I had a visceral reaction which amounted pretty much to, "well, if I shot some street thug who tried to rip me off for fifty or sixty dollars, I can imagine what I might do to somebody that tried to rip me off of rights to a patent from research that might make me hundreds of thousands, or millions, of dollars". And, bluntly, speaking, by denying her tenure, whatever other reasons they might have had for doing so, it pretty much amounted to property theft. Which, I have to admit I considered ironic, seeing as how Bishop has been described as a fairly obnoxious Obama supporter, in addition to being, according to at least one of her students, a socialist (though the student insists she kept this out of the classroom).
The more time dragged on, the more came out. Now, it seems Bishop might have been involved in a plot to kill a professor at Harvard, where she was a student, with a pipe bomb sent by mail to the house of the professor, who was in a position to decide favorably or unfavorably on her work, and with whom she had a history or disputes. Yet, it should always be noted that Bishop was never charged, and in point of fact, though this is seldom pointed out, she went on to become an instructor of medicine at Harvard for a brief period of time.
Nevertheless, she and her husband was investigated thoroughly, which led to a compelling discovery-
During a search of Bishop's computer, authorities found a draft of a novel that Bishop was writing about a female scientist who had killed her brother and was hoping to make amends by becoming a great scientist, according to a person who was briefed on the investigation and spoke to the Globe on the condition of anonymity.
Which serves as a segue to a political angle, lately revealed, involving Massachusetts Representative William Delahunt, who in 1986 was the prosecutor in Quincy Massachusetts, when Bishop, then nineteen, was charged with killing her eighteen year old brother Seth, with whom she had also, according to some sources, had an argument. Yet, the incident was labeled an accident, even though she shot at her brother three times with a shotgun she was, according to the official report, "learning how to load", hitting him one time in the left chest area and severing his aorta.
Most of the report vanished shortly after it was filed, so the nature of the argument, if there was one, remains a mystery, but it is fairly well established that she was released the same day she was taken into custody, and never charged, even though the day she left her house immediately following her brother's killing, she tried to rob an auto dealer with the same gun with which she shot her brother, demanding he supply her with a car, claiming that her husband was after her.
Delahunt, so the story goes, ordered her release, yet he claims to have no recollection of the incident. However, it seems that he might have been influenced by the fact that Bishop's mother was active in local politics, and perhaps more importantly set on the local police board.
By the time it's all over with, she might well turn out to be a Kennedy love child, for all we know, but whatever the case might be, there is no doubt that something is fishy, and by all rights this woman should never have been granted a position at the University of Alabama Huntsville.
Admittedly hearsay accounts describe the family life of the Bishops as dark and foreboding, with no open indications of love, or any kind of closeness.
In the meantime, I think overlooked in this controversy is the matter of university policy in deciding tenure, and also the matter of patents. Tenure is the Holy Grail of university professors, and once given, it is rarely taken away. It seems to be more about politics than actual merit in the majority of cases. I think the system is in dire need of reform. Tenure should perhaps be granted automatically when a professor is employed past a set period of time, maybe four years, and it should not be so difficult to revoke as it now is, though such an action should not be undertaken lightly. There is also the matter of patents. If a professor is denied tenure, he or she should be able to take his or her research wherever they go, or alternately, they should be able to retain the rights to their work, including royalties.
All that being said, Bishops denial of tenure might well have had some valid grounds. She had only published about one paper a year during her association with the university, whereas the average is something along the lines of at least three or four papers a year, if not more. She was a hard person to get to know, by most accounts, being very withdrawn and unsociable. Her class was, according to many of her students, much too hard, and in fact she did not so much teach as read out of the book. Following is statements taken from the first of five pages of the website Rate My Professor:
Dr. Bishop does not put what she says will be on the test on the test!!!!! If you study what she tells you to study, you will fail, simple as that. From experience I'm a 4.0 student with a 100 in lab, and a C in her lectures class, if that doesn't tell you that somethings up, I don't know what will!! Take Dr. Adcock, she help you learn the material
Dr Bishop is an excellent teacher! She is very helpful and nice. She does everything to help students do well. She even offers extra classes! The students who show up and work think she is a good teacher.
Hard class to pass.. Requires a GREAT deal of studying!
Professor is helpful but the class is super hard! She has classes for extra help since there are so many students in the class.
This class was great. Bishop makes the class interesting by talking about her research and her friends research. That speaker she had for class was hard to understand but smart. She expects alot and you need to come to every class and study. She is hot but she tries to hide it.And she is a socalist but she only talks about it after class.
By and large, the reviews seem to run at least two-to-one positive. She was not without her accomplishments, having procured funding for the study of Nitrous Oxide on cells, and inventing the neurister, or neuristor, along with something that has been described as a portable petrie dish for the study of germs and bacteria. Following is an explanation of her work from her University Profile page, now deleted but thankfully archived.
1. Induced Adaptive Resistance to NO in the CNS.
Neurons release and utilize low levels of the free radical, nitric oxide (NO), for cellular signaling and neurotransmission. At high levels (can be >1mM), typically released during CNS injury and disease, NO is toxic. We have found that when motor neurons, both the NSC34 motor neuron cell line and primary motor neurons, are exposed to low doses of NO (~25nM) they become resistant (as assayed by significantly decreased DNA damage and apoptosis) to normally toxic levels of NO (~300nM-1mM). We have dubbed this phenomenon, induced adaptive resistance (IAR). IAR is dependent on the heme metabolizing enzyme, heme oxygenase 1 (HO1), as demonstrated by the loss of resistance upon the incubation of motor neurons with an HO1 inhibitor, and by the absence of resistance in motor neurons isolated from HO1 null mice. IAR extends to peroxide which is a product of the metabolism of superoxide, a free radical also released during CNS disease and injury. One proposed cause of NO-mediated cell death is extensive protein nitration by peroxynitrite, a molecule formed by the combination of superoxide with NO. IAR cells have significantly decreased levels of protein nitration in response to toxic levels of NO as compared to non adapted cells. In addition, motor neurons isolated from HO1 null mice have elevated levels of nitrated proteins in response to toxic levels of NO as compared to cells isolated from wildtype animals. Taken together this data indicates that, in an HO1-dependent manner, IAR protects cell from free radical damage. Elucidation of the mechanisms IAR will allow us to mitigate free radical mediated damage seen in many CNS diseases and injury. The space flight environment (high radiation / low gravity) stresses cells and, in the case of high radiation, also leads to the production of free radicals, thereby underscoring the importance of understanding IAR.
She has typically been accompanied in her work by her husband, the Chief research scientist of Cherokee Lab Systems, who she has worked with on innumerable projects, and who has also been detained and questioned by police, though not yet charged with any crime, nor is he speaking about events of the last few weeks, on advice of attorney.
Following are pdfs of two of her papers, here and here.
From the looks of things, she was urging her daughters to follow in her footsteps-though hopefully unarmed.
