On Monday, teachers at the Irving Independent School District in Irving, Texas, had police arrest a 14-year-old student named Ahmed Mohamed for bringing to school a simple electronic clock he had built as an engineering project. Police escorted Mohamed out of school in handcuffs — photos of the arrest show him wearing a NASA T-shirt — and accused him of trying to build a bomb.
This arrest, clearly, should never have happened. But one would like to expect at least that the Irving school, after just a cursory glance at the clock and maybe a conversation with Mohamed's engineering teacher, who had praised the project, would realize its mistake. That the school would apologize to Mohamed for humiliating and terrorizing him, acknowledge its mistake, and use it as a teaching moment to discuss racism and profiling.
That is not what has happened. Instead, even after learning that the clock was just a clock built as an educational project, the school suspended Mohamed for three days and sent out this letter to parents on Tuesday:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/281348805/ParentLetter-SuspiciousLookingItematMacArthur
The letter, which acknowledges no mistake whatsoever on the school's part even though by then school officials knew the clock was harmless, is infuriating to read for its tone-deafness.
It seems to imply that Mohamed was at fault for violating the "Student Code of Conduct." The letter also asks students to "immediately report any suspicious items and / or suspicious behavior," in effect asking students and parents help to perpetuate the school's practice of racist profiling, even after that profiling had been clearly demonstrated as without merit. It is appalling that school officials would still think this way even after their arrest had been exposed as a horrible mistake, but it is especially telling that they would wish to announce this fact to students' parents as well.
It's certainly intriguing that a 14 year old, ninth grader, gets arrested for simply completing an engineering project that his instructor had assigned him to complete. Adding more fuel to the fire was that the student in question is Muslim. Since when does believing in a specific faith suddenly make you a suspicious person?
It's a shame that this generation of school students can't seem to attend school without being under suspicion of possibly doing something wrong in various ways. I'm gob smacked at the fact that attending school for this generation has gotten so much tougher.
It nearly seems like each time you either read or hear the news, you end up reading about some sort of incident occurring at a school campus that keeps many parents on edge.
Hopefully the Principal of MacAruthor High School will genuinely realize the mistake made and make proper atonement to the young student. I agree with the writer of this story, this should never have happened.
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