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A Real Time Bomb

Young Teen Wrongfully Accused of Bringing a Bomb to School Thinking back on our

days as a high school student, we all have a list of favorite subjects. For Ahmed Mohamed, a

freshman of Muslim descent at MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas, that special subject was

engineering. Ahmed had dreams of being an engineer, and to showcase his skill he claimed to

have built a clock out of his pencil case. When he brought it in to show his teacher, he did not get

the reaction that he expected. Ahmed was arrested after a teacher, one of many who had seen his

device, reported that he had brought a possible bomb to school. Ahmed was later told that he was

arrested for making a hoax bomb, although many believed the school was justified in calling the

police. If there had been a threat, the school should have been evacuated and a bomb squad

should have been notified. Procedures to protect schools from bomb threats are in place for a

reason: however, the school neglected the procedures. The decision made by the school shows

how the administrators must have not believed that the “threat” was a real bomb, which brings

up the question, was this a real threat, or was it racism? Or was this just a small issue blown way

out of proportion.

There have been many different reactions emerging from this incident, some supporting

Ahmed and some criticizing him. Among those supporting Ahmed is the President of the United

States. Obama invited Ahmed to the White House by tweeting “Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to

bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what

makes America great.” Obama was looking at Ahmed as a young engineer who made a clock

that was wrongly identified as a bomb According to an article on Tech Insider, Microsoft sent

Ahmed a Surface Pro 3, a 3D printer, a Microsoft band, an Office 365 subscription, and much

more, in hopes that he would continuing his hobby of engineering.

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Microsoft and the president recognize Ahmed as a young engineer; however, the clock

was not actually homemade. Ahmed’s clock was created by Micronta, a RadioShack subsidiary;

Ahmed removed the plastic casing and put it in his pencil case so just the counter was showing.

The Boston Bombing is an example of when a young man made a homemade bomb, and killed 3

people. In a youtube interview with Ahmed, the teen said “he closed up the box with a piece of

cord because he didn’t want it to look suspicious”. This means that even before he brought the

briefcase into school he thought that it might look suspicious, yet he brought it anyway. The

school was justified in being suspicious of the briefcase. By not following procedures, such as

evacuating the school, and by arresting the young made many people wonder if this was an act of

racism, which it was.

If Ahmed was White, or Asian would the reaction from the school administrators have

been different, or the same? Regardless, the incident was blown out of proportion, and the school

acted inappropriately.