After he put so much hard work into his science project, Ahmed Mohamed was so excited to show his teacher his creation. Ahmed, freshman from Irving, Texas, was one of the few Muslim children at his school. Ahmed designed a fully functioning digital clock from a pencil case, and brought his clock into school to show it off.
Unfortunately, upon arriving at his school and revealing the clock Ahmed was not only sent to the office, but he was later arrested and detained. Due to his ethnicity, it was assumed that the clock the Ahmed had created was a bomb.
CNN released a statement from Ahmed saying, "I built a clock to impress my teacher but when I showed it to her, she thought it was a threat to her. It was really sad that she took the wrong impression of it."
The police, who were later questioned about the arrest said that Ahmed continuously explained that the object was a clock, but wouldn’t explain any further uses of the object. It was later discovered that the object had no further uses, and was in fact just a clock. The BBC reported that after investigation the charges were officially dropped by the Irving police department. Ahmed returned to is family and a full media frenzy erupted over the incident bring tons of negative attention to the town.
This overreaction by the school and display of what many are calling “blatant racism” started a social media frenzy that was centered around the hashtag “#IstandwithAhmed." The tag began trending on almost all major forms of social media and the story caught the attention of many important people
After the media took off, the Irving police were under huge scrutiny for their actions. They were forced to justify the arrest, and in the end, they had only the support of the Mayor, who had been accused of prejudice against Muslims before. The police were unable to find a compelling reason for the arrest which is what led to all charges being quickly dropped. Media outlets were buzzing with accusations of racism and bigotry in local government of Irving.
The school not only apologized but also invited Ahmed back to resume class. Ahmed's family, according to the BBC, has decided to not only transfer Ahmed out of the school district but also transfer all their other children to other schools. His father, who is incredibly proud of Ahmed, said, “He's a very smart, brilliant boy and he said he just wanted to show himself to the world."
Well, to his father's joy, Ahmed did show off to the world and through the media found support in many incredible places. CNN reported that among the supporters are MIT, NASA, Reddit, Barack Obama, and many more. He has been offered a full ride scholarship to the New European College and was given a free circuit kit. Ahmed has started a movement to support Muslim’s internationally, and given the issue of Muslim rights new life.
