Alabama Shooting and Background Checks
Employers increasingly use background checks and other tests in the hiring process. The killing of three biology professors by a colleague, Dr. Amy Bishop, at the University of Alabama in Huntsville raises the question of whether employers go far enough. (Click here and here.)
Dr. Bishop was a respected scientist, although she had trouble getting along with others and was criticized for her teaching style. She was upset about being denied tenure, the holy grail for university professors, and during a biology faculty meeting, she pulled out a 9-millimeter handgun and began shooting.
As it turns out, Dr. Bishop had killed her brother with a shotgun in Boston in 1986. The shooting was controversially ruled accidental, and now the police file on this case is missing. Moreover, she was suspected of making a pipe bomb to be used against a professor at Harvard. She was never arrested.
My guess is that Dr. Bishop wasn’t subjected to any background check. She was, after all, a college professor. Maybe, the two shady events in her past wouldn’t have shown up in a background check, depending on its thoroughness. But they may have.
Some employers that use drug tests and background checks do so selectively. Front-line employees are always tested. At various levels up the chain, other employees are tested. But a line is usually drawn somewhere. Are employers really going to ask an executive to submit to a drug test or background check? Often, they do not.
There are no executives who smoke pot or use cocaine? There are no executives who have felonies or other criminal activity in their backgrounds?
Employers need to regularly review the hiring tests they use. They may need to make changes. As the Alabama shooting demonstrates, exempting certain high-level employees from the tests is a questionable practice.
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by JohnPhillipsJr: Alabama shooting of biology professors may have something to say about the way background checks are used. http://tinyurl.com/yb3auyd...
February 16th, 2010 at 8:02 am e
Nae Says:
Even if you do a background check, how far do you go back? When was this professor hired compared to when her brother was killed?
We can only go back 7 years in this state, yet in Missouri in Herndon v City of Manchester the Missouri Court of Appeals held that a jury could determine if the city’s background check was adequate since it didn’t turn up an incident that happened 15 years prior. 15 YEARS!
We may need the Supreme Court or our legislators to come and set a standard. How far is too far? How much is too much?
February 16th, 2010 at 11:55 am e
John Phillips Says:
Nae,
Thanks for your comment. Very good points.
My impression is that the professor was hired several years after the incident involving her brother.
If a state puts a limit on how far you can go back, that should settle the matter, unless an employer is privy to older information that would have a direct impact on the work the person is being hired to do.
If there is no limit on how far back you can go, then it seems to me that the safe thing to do would be to go back as far as possible.
If you have a situation like this where people are killed by an employee with a suspect record (and honestly, I think whether the professor in question had a suspect record is a close call under all the circumstances that existed at the time she was hired),it will be argued that there in no too far or too much. It will be argued that if the employer had dug deeply enough, something would have been found that would have prevented the employee from being hired and, thus, from being in a situation to kill her victims. That can always be argued. It’s tougher to prove.
Thanks again for your comment.
John
February 16th, 2010 at 3:22 pm e
Sharon McKnight Says:
Given that she had not been convicted of any prior crime would there even be a record an employer could base a no-hire decision on? I’ve always been told that convictions count against an applicant but that arrests don’t. (Innocent until proven guilty.)
February 17th, 2010 at 5:23 pm e
The case of Amy Bishop : Keeping the World Safe Says:
[...] February 16, 2010 post, “Alabama Shooting and Background Checks,” is a good example of his work. Biology professor, Amy Bishop, of the University of Alabama [...]
February 24th, 2010 at 8:49 am e
The Legal Blotter » Blog Archive » Alabama Shooting and Background Checks | The Word on Employment Law Says:
[...] Alabama Shooting and Background Checks | The Word on Employment Law [...]
February 24th, 2010 at 3:03 pm e
John Phillips Says:
Sharon,
Thanks for your comment. It’s likely that a deep background check would have turned up one or both of the “problems” in her background. Convictions are always safer than arrests, but what an employer uses in making a hiring decision depends on the job. In any event, it doesn’t appear that she was arrested for either problem. If her employer had found both of the problems in question, denying her employment might have been justified, given the fact she was being hired as a professor — if the denial were consistent with the way the employer treated other applicants. This day and time, a school has considerable leeway in what is used for a disqualification. Consistency is what’s important. Still not an easy call.
John
February 26th, 2010 at 7:31 pm e