Ahmed Mohamed made headlines this past September when he brought a homemade clock to school. Teachers suspected the clock was actually a homemade bomb and school officials called police, who detained Ahmed for questioning. Many controversies arose from this incident; all over social media, you could find people expressing different viewpoints and opinions on the issue.
Hate-fueled social media articles and rants targeted at Ahmed left the boy feeling traumatized, especially after it was proven that the perceived bomb really was just a clock. Ahmed's face was edited onto a photo of Osama bin Laden's body, videos and pictures of Ahmed from the day of the incident went viral, and hateful propaganda was spread all over the internet. A Halloween costume was even created to depict Ahmed, as the title of the costume was "clock boy," and could be purchased for $79.99 from costumeish.com.
Besides the harsh judgement from social media, Ahmed and his family also claim that his civil rights were violated, as he was not read his Miranda Rights, and that the whole situation basically came down to discrimination against Ahmed's race and religion.
Not all responses to the clock incident were negative, though. Ahmed was also met with a lot of support from strangers on social media (#IStandWithAhmed), Mark Zuckerberg (co-founder of Facebook) who offered Ahmed an internship for his creativity, as well as a personal invitation to the White House from President Barack Obama. Ahmed was even awarded a scholarship from the Qatar Foundation to attend school in Qatar. Since this incident, the Mohamed family has decided to utilize the scholarship that was gifted to Ahmed, and they are moving to Qatar in the coming weeks.
The school district of Irving, Texas received two letters last week demanding compensation to Ahmed Mohamed, after the social and psychological damage that was caused by the whole situation. Irving city and school officials are being asked to apologize to Ahmed Mohamed and his family, and are also being asked to pay fifteen million dollars. If Irving city and school officials do not respond to these requests within sixty days, attorneys say that the Mohamed family will file a civil lawsuit. No response has been reported from the city or school as of yet.
After the amount of judgement and criticism that surrounded this story in September, we can only wait and see what kind of responses will come of this update in Ahmed's story. Will the city of Irving and school officials submit to the requests made by the Mohamed family, or will this be made into a civil case once the sixty days have passed?
