"Clock boy" discrimination lawsuit dismissed by federal judge

[christx30]

Source: CBS News

A federal judge has dismissed a discrimination lawsuit brought by the family a Muslim student who was arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school that officials believed to be a bomb, saying the student's attorneys failed to prove he was treated differently based on his race or religion.

In September 2015, Ahmed Mohamed, an avid hobbyist who was 14 at the time, assembled the clock using a circuit board and digital display and proudly brought the clock to school to show to his teachers. One of his teachers heard the device beeping and brought Mohamed to the principal's office. He was then arrested and suspended for three days.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/clock-boy-ahmed-mohamed-discrimination-lawsuit-dismissed/

[itsrobert]

1. Actually, he took the circuit board and digital display

and presented it as his own creation. The opposite of assemble. If I removed an engine out of a car, did I assemble an engine?

[bitterross]

4. I don't really think that is the point.

Semantics about what and how he developed the device are irrelevant. The issue at hand is how he was treated and was it different than any other child would have been treated based on his ethnicity and religion or perceived religion.

[Crash2Parties]

19. Initially the story was that he built it from scratch

Which would place him in the upper few percent of kids his age for that sort of hobby. It was inaccurate & possible done to conjure additional outrage. In fact, all he did was remove an alarm clock from it's case (so, removed about a dozen screws) and put it in a briefcase style case.

Problem is, his dad is a bit of a political activist and setting his kid up for this does match his style of social protest.

[pnwmom]

5. He brought it to school to show the teacher how the thing worked.

And he was a kid. Your response seems pretty hard-hearted.

[itsrobert]

6. No, tired of news making up facts.

"He assembled it" is an alternative fact. Why make the kid out to be a genius? He maybe or he may not be. Removing the casing from a clock is something any kid his age can do.

[pnwmom]

7. No one was making him out to be a genius. Just a kid who was

excited about the device he had and wanted to share it with his teacher.

He didn't have to be a genius to be treated respectfully, and he certainly didn't have to be a genius to not get picked up by the police and suspended for three days.

[MichMan]

26. They sure did

Invited to the White House to meet the President, invited by Zuckerberg to FaceBook HQ, went to NASA with a special invite, visited MIT, visited Google and offered an internship when he was older, and also went to a session of the UN. All of them praising him for "inventing" a clock. As others stated, he took a store bought clock out of the housing and placed the contents in a pencil box.

It was not for a class project, it was something he just brought in on his own. When he showed it to a teacher at school, he was told to put it away until school was over. He set the alarm, so it went off in another class and that's when all the trouble started. I think the family got the reaction they were hoping for

[pnwmom]

27. Hmmm . . . now I'm hearing some jealousy.

I think the tech community decided to come behind this brown kid that was being bullied by the school administrators because of his interest in playing with a circuit board.

Good for them. Almost every future engineer or techie starts out by playing with a circuit board. And they shouldn't be terrorized by adults for bringing them for a teacher to see at school.

[MichMan]

28. Jealousy by me?

I'm a 60 year old Engineer myself. Kids do all sorts of amazing things these days; this was not one of them. He did nothing with the circuit board other than placing parts from a working clock in a pencil box. Kids of my generation did more with Heathkits or Radio Shack

He was told to put it away by one teacher and decided to set the alarm so it would go off in another class.

[pnwmom]

30. Not you in particular. By the people here who seem to need

to put this kid in his place, who need to declare that he's no one special.

The school made him special. They singled him out in an extremely negative way. The tech community opened its arms to him. Good for the tech community.

[snooper2]

31. He is a scammer just like his sister the scammer....trained by dad

We have gone through this enough here- No need to rehash LOL

[alarimer]

34. What is wrong with you?

[obamanut2012]

36. I agree with snooper

And, if you check my posts when this happened, I was initially supportive of the young man and his family.

[juxtaposed]

2. this was AM radio's best bullshit hate fuck storm of the year. why did they give up so soon?

[ck4829]

3. I doubt the Irving Independent School District has any money anyway

Probably the kind of people who think public education is "socialist class warfare" and support the Texan state government's push to use schoolbooks to push creationism and that slaves were just "workers".

[gyroscope]

8. Lawsuit had ZERO basis to claim discrimination

the lawsuit was ridiculous and rightfully dismissed.

he brought a suitcase clock to school which could be easily mistaken for a bomb.

it had nothing to do with his race or religion.




Irving police photo of the clock

[paleotn]

9. You're joking, right?

[gyroscope]

23. The courts were not joking when they dismissed a stupid lawsuit

are you?

[christx30]

14. And here's the Unabomber's:

[dembotoz]

10. Wonder how he is doing now

[Sunlei]

11. I bet the child is doing well. He and family moved to a better school in another country.

[christx30]

13. They came back from Qatar and wanted

to start off their time back here by suing the school district and the city, demanding like $900 million for all of the "pain and suffering" he went through. But, yay, he's getting nothing.
He had also sued everyone in the media that looked at him strangely. And that one got shut down too. So looks like the kid and his family are getting nothing.

[dembotoz]

16. So this is not the land of opportunity

Still he seemed bright I would hope it gets him somewhere other than a courtroom

[christx30]

17. His family are grifters.

They wanted a reaction so they could scream 'islamophobia' and get a huge settlement. And they got shut down at every stage, with every attempt. He's going to have to accept that there's nothing inherently special about him. Study hard, get good grades, and he can get a decent job that'll support him and his family. But they are not going to become millionaires off the backs of Irving taxpayers.

[Crash2Parties]

20. His father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed ran for President of Sudan, lost 2x

He is an Islamic activist. Problem is, American media didn't care to report which side he was an activist *for*. For instance, when he ran for office in Sudan, it was against Umar al-Bashir, in 2010 and 2015. Umar al-Bashir has been accused of War Crimes, so maybe Mohamed Elhassan isn't the bad guy of the story. Or maybe he's even worse than Umar al-Bashir; see, the media really doesn't care to dig up and explain that part.

[RhodeIslandOne]

24. I'm sure his sisters enjoyed Qatar. n/m

[Nash Teeth]

12. Brain drain

Perfect example of how we lose talent to other countries. The family is moving to Qatar. Now Qatar will have this young man's outstanding clock building talent instead of us.

[LisaL]

15. Oh for crying out loud.

[Crash2Parties]

21. He took 9 screws out of a store bought clock & put the pieces in a briefcase.

That was all.

Now, while that may show a sign of a nascent tinkerer or maker, it also may just be a kid who was presenting work as his own that wasn't. We simply don't know and at this point the media story is indelibly muddied.

[RhodeIslandOne]

25. I'm sure his sisters loved it there. n/m

[snooper2]

32. LOL- some people thought you were being serious

[Nash Teeth]

33. I soulda used the sarcasm thingie. My bad.

[obamanut2012]

18. The more time passes, the more I think this was a set up

By his family. Allllllll of these lawsuits, against the media, etc.

And, I stuck up for the boy when it first happened.

[Crash2Parties]

22. That's the problem - all of this is totally his Dad's style

But we simply don't know, and likely never will.

[obamanut2012]

35. Yup, it was just used as a dividing weapon too, imo

[dalton99a]

29. Agreed. It doesn't pass the smell test.