With 25 years of teaching experience at Spain's top-ranked veterinary school, 58 articles in prestigious international journals, and numerous patents to her name, Victoria Lopez Rodas would be a strong candidate for any academic job in her field. So when she took a national qualifying examination for a full professorship in animal science last spring, it was hardly surprising that several members of the panel at the public interview cited her merits as both teacher and scholar. Yet according to a published account by two witnesses, both of them colleagues and friends of Ms. Lopez, the same panelists tempered their praise with captious and nit-picking criticisms of her presentation, including what one examiner called the "unpardonable" error of a mislabeled slide. When the panel released its decision, Ms. Lopez was the seventh out of seven qualified candidates, ranked too low to win the position--even though the "impact factor" of her published research, a critical measure of her standing as a scientist, was more than four times as high as that of the candidate who came in first. This article presents the case of Ms. Lopez as a case of inbreeding--hiring from within the ranks of a university or research institute--that is threatening the Spanish academe and illustrates the obstacles still faced by those who would make the country's tenure system fairer and more transparent. This article also discusses academic immobility, culture of connections, feudal arrangement, as well as some possible solutions.