<p>To return to Amy Bishop, I think the most telling anecdote in the NYTimes article was her demand for a booster seat and her stated sense of entitlement – “I am Dr. Amy Bishop!” She obviously thought that her Harvard degree should earn the respect – and subservience – of all. The denial of her tenure case contradicted something she believed deeply, that she was better than most, if not all, of her colleagues, even though she did not have the research results to back that up. Although I’m not a psychologist, I recognize that kind of thinking as sociopathic, especially when combined with inappropriate rage every time her beliefs were challenged by reality. The university is not at fault. The tenure process isn’t at fault. The system, however, did indeed fail to identify and help such an individual. She should have been evaluated after she shot her brother, regardless of what her parents told police. Even if it had been a true accident, she clearly had some kind of break afterwards.</p>
<p>The possibility that she went to Harvard and therefore might have been doing research at such a high level that no one understood her is unlikely. After all, some extremely bright individuals, many of whom not only received their degrees from the likes of Harvard but who also teach at top programs, have judged her work insufficient for widespread publication. Although it is possible she made some misunderstood or politically risky discovery, it is unlikely. The fact that she kept dismissing or losing graduate students suggests that she may not have made much headway in her research. Ideas don’t warrant tenure; the meticulous support of them and the dissemination (publication) of the results that add to the literature of the field do. Tenure cases are supported not only by university colleagues but also, and, most importantly, by outside evaluations from people at the top of their fields. Usually, those letters, at least in part, must be written by people who have not collaborated with the individual. A well-known individual in the specific research community will get admiring and detailed letters; someone who has not published much or who has not invested herself in the community will get only thin ones. None of us are privvy to the details of her case to know whether she was a borderline case or an easy rejection.</p>