Ahmed Mohamed, who is Muslim, was led away in handcuffs and suspended from school for three days, sparking a national conversation of racism in a post-September 11 America. The Council on American-Islamic Relations says it is investigating the incident.
After analysis, it was proven that Ahmed’s clock was indeed just a homemade clock.
Seems some folks at his Texas high school thought the clock looked like the makings of a bomb and turned him into police.
On Wednesday, he became an Internet sensation.
He also encouraged other young people to keep working on their inventions despite any negative conequences.
“We live in an age where you can’t take things like that to school”, Boyd said. Then US President Barack Obama entered the Twittersphere. “That’s too bad”, he said. And they told me, ‘Why would you bring a clock to school?’ And I was like to tell time.
Hillary Clinton tweeted: “Assumptions and fear don’t keep us safe-they hold us back”.
The Dallas Morning News reports that Ahmed enjoys tinkering with electronics and that he built the clock at home on Sunday night. Police showed up, pulled Mohamed out of class, and detained him.
Peter Shankman had a word of caution: “By the way: Arresting smart 9th graders isn’t how you stop terrorists”.
But on Wednesday, the 14-year-old was arrested at his school for bringing a “homemade bomb” into class. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg praised and defended the boy in a post on his Facebook page.
“Cool clock, Ahmed“, Obama wrote in a tweet Wednesday. “She said I don’t want you going around with that”. I think this wouldn’t even be a question if his name wasn’t Ahmed Mohamed.
Among the supporters who took to Twitter to voice their support for Mohamed were celebrities, engineers, journalists, and companies like 3M, which invited him to visit their science lab.
“I guess everyone knows, I’m the person who built a clock and got in a lot of trouble”, he said. “#Thankyouforstandingwithme #IStandWithAhmed”.
Many also took to social media to criticize police and officials at MacArthur High School, suspecting them of overreacting because of the boy’s religion.
But Boyd said authorities determined that the teenager did not intend to alarm anyone and the device, which the chief called “a homemade experiment”, was innocuous.