Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

We just cannot and should not say such things. We KNOW 1000% that it was a disassembled clock so there is no way for us to put ourselves in the English teacher's place and make blanket accusations. Put me on the spot to interpret some Shakespeare and I dare say this English teacher would think me the idiot.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

I heard the clock was completely fraudulent

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

I'm not generalizing, I'm assuming. I'm assuming that Zero Tolerance does not include "disassembled active electronics" because I feel like that would be too insane. I will gladly change my mind if they were required to report something like "electronics devises where PCBs and wires are visible". If it they weren't though, then your argument doesn't hold any water.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

It was not a "creation" (the kid did say he built it but I'm thinking he was crazy nervous) just something the student disassembled. But taking things apart to see how they work is kewl and definitely a sign of intellectual curiosity.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

I'm chuckling thinking about trying to explain PCBs to an English teacher or a 50-year old principal.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

So the hypothetical principal would have been in high school in the 80s? Getting in the way back machine. Not only you could wear a Timex as a watch, you could own a Timex Sinclair computer. Or you could make you own computer with a PCB, soldering iron and mostly discrete components. If you where flush with cash, you could buy the original IBM PC. 8 bit architecture was old hat even then. Bill Gates was only a millionaire. Even old people had given up their slide rules for calculators. We had all that stuff back then. Do you want to play Ticktacktoe?

Please take this with the tongue in cheek that is intended :]

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

But he kept trying to present it as his invention.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Are you sure? And if so, who cares? I have been under the impression that he followed some instructions (alla, Instructables) and used kit type parts to build it. Whichever of those is true, awesome! I wish I had had the initiative to do that at age 14.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Realize that national media often get the details wrong. Anyway the point of the controversy is did his taking it to school merit suspension and arrest, not was it a repurposed clock or an invention. Once again selective reporting and the school not being to tell its side of the story makes it hard to tell.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

I keep seeing that he tried passing it off as his own invention from many secondary sources. I feel like that is probably somebody's opinion. Find that for me in a Primary source and I will believe that he tried to do that. I'm honestly not sure which sources are right... haha. they are all so different.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Whether or not he passed it off as his "invention" or not is largely irrelevant. A student brought an engineering project he had been working on to school to show off. It doesn't matter if he invented it, used a kit, or reverse engineered an existing product. What he did should be celebrated and encouraged.

Instead he was arrested.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

I give a lot of time and investment to FIRST activities, because among other skills and experiences - I thought it was a great environment for young people to learn to think for themselves.

A lot of the replies on this thread make me question exactly that.

There is always more to these events, don't jump on the bandwagons the media lay out in front of you.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Or, to put it another way:

Don't believe everything you see on the Internet. (Or in print. Or that you hear from somebody.)

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Yea, I'm just upset that my photoshop skills are not good enough to put hand cuffs on, remove all the gang tattoos and swap out a confederate flag on the tee shirt for a NASA logo on that student. Because we all know that is the real story.


The story has been on lots of news outlets. All of them match up pretty closely. I guess we'll need to wait and see the 2016-2017 ISD school budget and the million dollar notation.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Are you aware of additional information that hasn't been shared in this thread?

If so, what is it?

If not -- what point is there in your post?

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

He or she was saying that sometimes, the media takes the facts that they receive and put their own sort of twists and opinions on the story. I think their point was very valid. The facts are exactly as follows before the arresting of Ahmed. He dissembles a clock and puts it in a pencil pouch. He thinks it is cool so he takes it to school. He shows his engineering teacher and the teacher says, don't show anyone else. Ahmed shows his English teacher and she believes it to be a hoax bomb. Ahmed gets arrested.

The OP's point in their post is that all the main media outlets blame Ahmed for everything and not listening to his teacher. The media also goes out on tangents talking about things that are irrelevant, just to make the poor kid look bad.

What some users are saying on Chief Delphi is that who cares about what the media is saying. The real issue is that the police arrested a teenager for an unjust reason. Some other users on Chief Delphi are also saying does it really matter if he didn't invent the clock? The cool part about this kid is that he is experimenting with electronics and learning how to do some mountings inside of the pencil case. It's cool that he is even experimenting with technology. That is exactly what some CD users are saying.

The point of the OP's post is saying that they enjoy a new perspective on the story and are glad to see that there is some other side to the story. Don't give the OP bad reputation for this post. They were just stating that they were glad to see another side of the story and they were just stating their opinion of how cool the users of CD are. Try not to criticize every little thing that is posted on CD. After all, CD is a forum and forums are for opinions. I just know i have received bad reputation before in a similar situation as the OP and I don't want it happening to the OP. Hopefully, I didn't make this post too in depth. Thanks for reading.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

What media are you watching? I have only seen crazy sentiments like that from nutso "media" outlets or public figures like Sarah Palin. Everything I have seen on CNN, NBC, Forbes, and even some of what I have seen on Fox (though I don't see that often) has been on his side.

I think that guys point was the opposite of what you are saying. It looks like he is suggesting that our support of Ahmed might have been influenced by "misleading" sources.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

That is not what happened. The English teacher passed the situation to the school administration who passed it to the police. Then the police questioned Ahmed (for too long in my opinion) and decided he was harmless. Ahmed was not arrested or charged with anything.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

I think most reasonable people would describe being placed into handcuffs, fingerprinted and having a mugshot taken as being arrested.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

There is really no need to qualify that. It is nearly exactly what happened. The teacher is the one who made the call the confiscate the clock and bring it to administration.
And what happened to him certainly sounds like "arrest" to me. And if it's not, whatever, let's stick to the important issues. Syntax is not one of them. The kid had an incredibly egregious thing happen to him. Your continued portrayal of it as simply "the police questioned him to long" is pretty insulting to him.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

There is every need to qualify that. You guys are throwing a teacher under the bus, accusing him/her of being racist when he/she may be just following zero tolerance procedures in order to keep his/her job. The same goes for the school administration - they passed the buck up to the police. Why is it so hard for you to imagine that this is mostly just ridiculous bureaucracy?

I have never said simply "the police questioned him too long". You added "simply" for effect. After being called by the school administration the police also have standard operating procedures. Each time I have said I thought they should not have questioned the student for so long. And many times in this tread I have said their could be a racist element but it is irresponsible to label teachers, administrators and police officers as racist without the facts.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

The student was detained and processed but never charged. And this was all in a juvenile facility, not real jail (though still terrifying to the student). The student's record will not show that we was arrested or charged, even as a juvenile. None of this should have happened. It is ridiculous. My point is runaway bureaucracy, zero tolerance policies and the wording of the relevant Texas law are obviously at fault. Racism may or may not be a factor and innocents should not be maligned until the facts are known.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

I'll address many of the responses I've seen here.
1. He said so himself during many recorded interviews that it was his invention. (I'm surprised our FIRST community Memebers hasn't been able to identify that he hadn't made the clock from the photo)
2. He literally opened up a clock case and spilled its innards out onto box. That's fine also I guess sure we'll applaud that as curiosity or whatever
3. If that is the case then should we encourage students the way we are Ahmed? Does every 10-14 year old (who I've seen many do remarkable things) get huge scholarship funds, internship opportunities, and a White House visit?
4. I certainly hope you didn't have the initiative to plaguerize at his age because that's exactly what he's done.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

I'm mostly talking about websites. Many websites are taking the main focus from his wrongful arresting to the fact he didn't invent the clock. Many sites are more concerned that he didn't invent the clock rather than the fact he got arrested. Sorry I wasn't very clear.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

And that makes sense because this recent development has brought the whole movement under question. It undermines his motives and make people suspicious. I was originally deeply appealed with what happened to him but after recent developments...

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Because, like I have been saying, I do NOT believe that Zero Tolerance covers "anything that looks electronic" or some similar wording. The teacher HAD to think something was suspicious about the device. They had to suspect him of malicious intent IF (and only if) ZT policy doesn't cover "electronic 7-seg displays" or the like. No bit of Zero Tolerance documentation I have found supports that. I would honestly love for you to prove me wrong.

I think you misread what I said. I was describing your wording as simple, not saying you used the word "simple".


I think it is important to note that accusing this teacher and administrator of racism in no way accuses other Texans or other adults at the school of racism. I think this goes without saying.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

I think you are missing the point of this issue. If a 14 year old student uses the word "invented" to describe something that they put together from a kit, or parts, or even put working parts into a new enclosure, that isn't a big deal. I have tons of students on my FIRST team that use the wrong words to describe their work (especially freshman like Ahmed). We correct them and we move on.

You should also look into how plagiarism because simply using the word "invent" does not qualify. Arguing about the use of the English language by a freshman seriously detracts from the real issues here.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Zero tolerance includes everything defined as a crime. In Texas it does not matter what Ahmed claimed (and you and I agree 100%, it was a clock!), the device need only "cause concern to an authority figure". All the teacher or administrator need have is a sliver of doubt about what or why and they pass the buck (up) in a CYA exercise, classic bureaucratic behavior. Note that the police did eventually decide Ahmed had no nefarious intent, that he was "harmless". Finding out why they did not release him at school will be interesting - I do not understand why we was detained.

So without any facts you are accusing the teacher and administrator of racism? You say it goes without saying but that is not the tone in the media.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

I understand that however nobody is addressing this head on for what it really is. Heck even the title of this thread. We all want to give him lip service and pitty; more than what he deserves. If we leave this at simply "he was a victim of stereotype", I couldn't agree any more. But going this far and giving him all this underserved credit and attention absolutely ridiculous. Sure a mild gesture to let him know that his curiosity and passion is appreciated but this? How can you justify all this lip service and attention?

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

As I see it, there is the issue. The teacher is only required to report the clock if it caused him/her concern. AND the teacher knew that reporting it would involve the police and put Ahmed into their custody (I say this because teachers are given training in Zero Tolerance policy procedures in my area and must be intimately familiar with what to do in these situations). Ahmed's electronics project did cause the teacher concern and he/she made the call to involve the police via reporting.

From what I have read, Ahmed was forthcoming with the fact that it was a clock from the beginning. The teacher didn't believe him and was concerned by his project. The teacher distrusted Ahmed's word, and it is hard to see why the teacher would think that escalation, and thus involving the policy, was the right call to make.



We have been discussing why it could be racism for a couple pages now, there is no need to say I have no facts. We are both presenting our deductions.
And luckily, CD is not the media, and this discussion is not about calling Texan's or other school officials racist. If that is the discussion you want, you should start another thread.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

No on is suggesting that he has "earned" all the attention and gifts. Sometimes big gestures which garner large media coverage are useful for making large social change. I'm not qualified to determine what he has "earned", but I'm very glad that this story is big enough that so many people are talking about it. And all the gifts he has received act as a tangible gesture that important people/companies value this kind of spirit in young people.

It publicly changes the story from "Administrators victimize young STEM enthusiast" to "The President, Microsoft, etc. value victimized young STEM enthusiasts".

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

So what?

Why should we even be trying to?

So what?

Yes, we should applaud this type of behavior.

Yes.

Obviously not. But Ahmed is not just every 10-14 year old who's done a remarkable thing.
When an incident becomes a matter of public interest, then examples need to be set. Important examples about racial tolerance and encouraging STEM.


Nothing he did constitutes plagiarism.

No, it doesn't. There are no "recent developments" that change anything here. Whether or not he "invented" the clock or not is irrelevant. It's a pedantic argument that has nothing to do with the larger themes of the cultural prejudices in play here (both racially and intellectually motivated).

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

I feel like the biggest thing about the lip service by the people of CD is because of the bad lip service of the media. I feel like the people of the media have taken it too far calling this kid pathetic for calling his rework an invention. I feel like so of the users of CD (including my self) have take it too far giving this kid credit for exploring technology. This case shouldn't even be in the media and it wouldn't be if he never got cuffed. The initial reason for this story was that he was cuffed before being released but as usual, the public and the media have taken this case on multiple other tangents like the one we're talking about now.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

First let say I think the school way overreacted. Nothing i have seen in the media says Ahmed tried to pass off his clock as anything more than a clock. I will even concede that cultural bias or prejudices probably played a part, maybe a large part in the school's actions. But to make a blanket assumption that was their primary reason for their actions without knowing the whole story (and the school cannot explain their side because of privacy issues) is to be guilty of the same prejudices as the school is being accused of.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

To whitewash away injustices because of a lack of definitive proof only enables them to perpetuate. You would have a point in a legal setting, but this is a larger cultural setting. This isn't about condemning the school so much as holding up Ahmed as a counterpoint against the cultural prejudices. Whether or not they were the exclusive reasons that led to his detainment by the authorities is a secondary matter. The circumstances has presented an opportunity for Ahmed to be an example to encourage STEM and dismantle racial prejudices.

More to my original point of the post you quoted, fact checking whether or not his clock was an "invention" or not is entirely off point. That doesn't matter here. Encouraging curiosity, intellectualism, and STEM experimentation as cultural values is what's important. Dismantling racial prejudices is what's important. Whether or not he printed his own PCB is not important. Trying to catch him in his word choice of "invention" and fact check the clock he brought is a petty argument that has little to do with the actual issues. This tweet in response to Richard Dawkin's line of inquiry about the origin of the clock captures it well.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Being the larger theme or not the answer to that is obvious amongst us all which clearly that it was wrong to do this based racial grounds is unacceptable. There there's your "relavent" part of this discussion out of the way. Now if we get to the actual part of this discussion which IS the lip service he his getting (like the title of this thread). What if everyone walked into school with electronic guys spilled out onto case and presenting it as their own invention? I wouldn't give anymore lip service to this than "I'm glad you have an interest in STEM but you're not allowed to take credit for someone else's work". If we go by definition of plagiarism, he has presented someone else's work as his own and while that shouldn't change the overall cultural response, it certainly should be a call to tone down on the lip service. Shall we applaud everyone that begins to take credit for others work? And it's not pedantic. I don't like to take public events like these at face value. I'm going to be skeptical of his intentions when a development like this emerges on a kid that's been hailed by everyone as such a innocent child.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

I understand your point. This makes a lot more sense to me.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

That's only the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot more of that discussion to be had. You're attempting to steer this discussion away from real issues, towards your own manufactured ones.

This is pretty, and, yes, pedantic. There are no "revelations" here. He's not attempting to profit from anyone else's work. Nothing here calls his innocence into question, especially not for the supposed crimes he was detained for.

You're missing the forest for the trees. You're trying to hang him based on the word "invention," and implying accusations at him that don't even make sense. Nothing you're talking about is relevant. The "lip service" he's receiving is because he's become both a public figure and a symbol. He's receiving this "lip service" because of the unfortunate circumstances he was placed in, and how demonstrating the positive qualities he was embodying can be a vehicle for change.

Whether or not the clock was his "invention" is irrelevant. Trying to fact check it does not make you some form of enlightened mind, who can see beyond the cloud of media hype. It makes you someone hooked upon a trivial detail, trying to derail an important conversation upon that detail.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

And to condemn based on conjecture dilutes the seriousness of charges of racial injustice next time around. Why not wait till the facts are in?
I'm thinking the difference might be lost on the persons and institutions being accused of racial injustices.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

How about you learn to respect an opinion? Since you are again generalizing my entire stance I will address your comments. You're making false assumptions on what I'm supposedly implying. I'm not trying to "hang" him on the word invention. I am trying to cast doubt on his persona. And how is this relevant? I don't know about your morals but I value integrity very highly and will scrutinize even the most one-sided arguments if there is any question of integrity here. Call it pedantic, pretty, or frankly whatever you may but honesty and integrity are important even for a 14-year old. If the unfortunate case of Ahmed was presented in exactly the same way minus this "minor" detail at the end, than there would be absolutely no question of the qualities he embodies. You are so hung up on the most obvious and self-explanatory part of this debate that you simply fail to see how anything else is relevant. Yes. He was unjustly cuffed and interrogated and dehumanized due to what seems like a largely racially motivated reason. But how, pray tell, are you going to keep this discussion "relevant" for long when the only thing you have to contribute is your stale old argument that "Everything you guys say is irrelevant unless you say that he was falsely dehumanized and that this was racially motivated and we should encourage all the others victimized ". We get that Please grow out of that and understand where my point of view is situated. I and others that value scientific integrity have reason to be skeptical (note I'm leaving this at skepticism and nothing more, you can imagine whatever you think I'm implying) of his character and the "positive qualities he embodies". Don't get me wrong here. This does not change anything about the movement he stands for. That still stands strong. I will encouraging curiosity, intellectualism, and STEM experimentation but I will definitely not encourage dishonesty.

I will summarize. I've agreed with you this entire time with your case of encouragement for all people for are victimized like this. You've somehow misconstrued my other point that I'm skeptical of Ahmed's character as evidence that I'm missing the underlying point. While I do make the case for this as well, you must learn to respect this opinion since integrity relates greatly to what Ahmed the student who was victimized is portrayed.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Seeing as there is a question of honesty and integrity, I have one simple question. Think very carefully before you answer.


How is casting doubt on someone's persona NOT "hanging" him or her (for lack of a better term close at hand)?


Let me explain, so that you may know why I ask. If integrity is important, and honesty is important, then I believe that it it quite important to maintain the integrity and honesty--and, additionally, the reputation for such. Am I not correct? And, the tarnishing of said reputation is rather a serious matter, is it not? And, furthermore, said tarnishing could potentially lead someone towards death. (That one wasn't a question. There are known or suspected cases of that happening.) At any rate, a smeared reputation may as well be a "dead" or "hung" reputation, am I not correct?

If you said yes to at least one of those questions, then I have another question for you.

Is one word being "wrong" (whether it is or not is debatable in this case--for one thing, it could have been a misquote) worth attempting to drag someone else's reputation through the mud over?

Think very carefully about your answer. I'm not entirely sure you're going to like it. For that matter, I can't say for sure I'd like my answer either if someone asked me that question.




Folks, this discussion of 1) whether or not there was racism, 2) whether or not the teacher/school administration/police went too far, and 3) whether or not the student in question actually built the clock himself...

...Is it really worth going into what many an outsider would see as personal attacks over? I've been following this thread, making almost no comments, and honestly, that's what it seems to be going towards. Could we try to keep it away from those? Thanks a lot.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

@teku14
No, I will not "respect an opinion" that is openly trying to defame ("cast doubt on the persona") a 14 year old. Especially when that defamation only hurts the larger issue here. You claim you agree with me, yet your argument only serves to attempt to undermine the footing on which Ahmed stands.

@wireties
Fighting cultural/institutional prejudices is exactly where the real issues are. This doesn't "dilute" anything. And I certainly think the ones being "condemned" know that they aren't in a legal setting right now.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Once again you are you make the false connection that I Am undermining the movement as a whole ("the footing Ahmed stands on"). We shouldn't continue this discussion anymore if you can't comprehend how Ahmed and the larger issue can be addressed separately.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

I see your point however who's fault is it if someone plagiarizes and gets caught, defamed, and dies because of it? But you may be right in the sense that this is a kid and that I shouldn't be as harsh for this kind of thing especially given the circumstances he's In. I'm certainly not trying to "drag his reputation through the mud" which is an extremely harsh metaphor. And the one word is not wrong. He's said it multiple times in interviews but yet again you are correct about giving him this given the circumstances. However, I do reserve the right to remain skeptical of him as a person. That's my opinion.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

You leave yourself open to charges of impugning the character of individuals, organizations, indeed entire political entities, with zero evidence. This is nearly as egregious as the assumed racial prejudice itself.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

I'll put this bluntly.
There are real issues in play, and in a thread discussing those, you chose to attack the character a 14 year old you have never met. Not only are you distracting from the issue, you're contributing to the problem at hand. You're cyber bullying a 14 year old.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

How is holding Ahmed up as an example impugning the character of anyone? What happened to Ahmed was wrong, and stating as much needs to happen.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

And here you are guilty of the same, blindly supporting a 14 year old that you have never met and taking all that the media has to offer at face value while still making the same stale old arguments. You're last two sentences are purely unfounded rhetoric so I will disregard them for your sake.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Sean's points are valid and he's trying to foster a meaningful discussion about something that's FAR more important than whether this particular person meets your bizarre standards for integrity, etc.

Sean wants to talk about institutional racism and anti-intellectualism. You want to whine about a single individual. While they are subjects that certainly can be addressed separately as you've suggested, your piece of this discussion -- going after a kid -- is a worthless waste of your time and ours.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

I can't speak for Sean, but I'd rather support someone I'd never met than put them down. I'd like to think that people are good unless proven otherwise.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

I'm sorry that you feel that way about what I have to say. However, just because you say so (with disrespectfully strong language), does not make this any less important. While I agree that about the priority of institutional racism and anti-intellectualism over what my 2 cents were to this, I truly have no other motive here than to add another dimension to this topic. I'm not out defame this kid, drag his reputation through the mud or any of the other strong metaphors that people are accusing me of. In fact, most of what I've said here is an opinion of mine that Sean has such a strong desire scrutinize. The only kid that you, or anyone else in this conversation is after is me and my opinion. So if you truly want to stop wasting my time and yours how about you actually start talking about this larger issue instead of having away at me, lip service toward Ahmed, and my opinion of Ahmed as a person

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Does anyone really know whether "insert generic white Christian name here" would have been treated differently in this case? Was it the device or social injustice? Is it the media that jumped to a conclusion? These are tough questions to figure out.

I think that someone should have looked at the device/clock that this young man had and figured out it was not a bomb. Unfortunately, there are few individuals that would be able to do that. I know that after the fact it is easy to see that this was not a bomb.

If YOU were the teacher or staff member and you saw something like this how would YOU have reacted? Remember that if it had been an explosive device and it went off how would you have felt then?

I know many teachers who would have reacted the same way. Students bring in all sorts of things that aren't part of their classes. Including weapons, toys, and things I can't really talk about here. They don't belong at school. I have worked at schools (not my present one) where i have had to disarm individuals. I did not do that based on what they looked like. I did it based on the weapon.

Now Ahmed didn't have a weapon... but do we err on the side of caution when the circumstances dictate that? I have seen students with squirt guns (that looked amazing like real guns) cuffed and led away at school. How does one know?

Ahmed bears a little of this responsibility by just deciding to "make" this clock/device and bring it to school. While I applaud any attempt at deciphering the technological world around us and I love his curiosity about NASA and science, in retrospect he should have asked permission to bring it in and made sure everyone at school knew it was coming in order to not elicit the type of response that he got.

I am not knowledgeable enough about Ahmed or his family or the school or anything else to comment on his motives for doing this so I won't.


I believe it was the "device" that caused the reaction and not the color of Ahmed's skin or his name or religion.

People, in general, are afraid of technology because they don't understand it. They are encumbered by media reports of strange technological devices because for the most part, the media does not understand it either. Fictional programs have prop devices that are shown on screen giving the viewer a "taste" of what a real device looks like.

I know that this has probably happened at many schools all over the world.
A student brings something in to school.... it looks strange.... it is necessary to think the worst and act accordingly until it is proven safe. This is a totally necessary response to protect our students.

I am sorry for any student that gets caught up with something like this but it needs to be a learning experience. When the truth comes out, we move on.

move on... invite Ahmed to a team... give him a good place to exercise his curiosity and passion for technology....

move along... this is not the droid you are looking for....

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

I'm sorry... I was of the same opinion as well but after these reports. And I'm not trying to put him down. I have a different view. Maybe it's just me (as is evident by most other responses) that I become this skeptical when evidence of dishonesty surfaces.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Seeing as you have never met nor interacted with Ahmed, your opinion of him carries no weight. Your directly stated your objective as to "cast doubt on his persona," and your actions in this thread have backed that up. That's defaming someone. That's dragging someone through the mud. Most importantly, that's contributing to the type of anti-intellectualism that led to this issue. Instead of celebrating youth that are interested in science and technology, you are lashing out at Ahmed.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

If that is really all you want to do, then you are done. You gave your opinion that him claiming to have "invented" it instead of having "assembled" (or whatever) it means that we should think less of him than the media wants. No one has agreed with you so far. That will happen in life, but there is nothing more to discuss.

I'll respond to this part because I think this is an important part of the conversation for everyone to understand.
YES, we are after you and your opinion. We are doing so because we find you opinion to be poorly based, unjust, and simply bad. I'm not particularly fond of the "you must respect everone's opinion" because I believe (and I would wager that Sean and Madison agree) that your opinion is a poisonous one. For the reasons presented in our discussion already, I recommend that you take some time, reconsider, and think about dropping that opinion.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

The big assumption here is what happened to Ahmed is based on institutional racism. It might well be but nobody has presented any proof. Schools over react & over discipline frequently for reasons other than institutional racism. Ahmed jokingly telling a friend he was going to blow up the school moves the school's reaction to just overreaching. This is hypothetical; no disrespect to Ahmed is intended.

If the response is just to prove we are not all racist then it is a little silly. (not directed at Sean or you) If it is to have a meaningful discussion on how to overcome remaining vestiges of discrimination great. Either way it seems that Ahmed is becoming a symbol & the actual facts are unimportant. "When the legend becomes the fact, print the legend" Maxwell Scott

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Thank you for that summation. I wished that I could have been done with this a while ago but yes that is my opinion and if that's the consensus of the majority (very apparent that it is) for me to stop arguing this opinion then I will do so. I was only being defensive to that opinion.

While I disagree with you on this opinion being any of the 3 you listed above and believe it is very important to the discussion, I recognize the desire by everyone else to not have this kind of opinion present. I've thought about this many times but I stand firm by my opinion.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Exposing the effects of institutional racism can be very difficult. Even in the absence of definitive proof that those involved in this case were motivated by racism, the possibility itself offers an opportunity for us to discuss problems that need to be solved (and, I'd argue, are not mere vestiges of our checkered past).

In this case, I don't think you need proof of some overt action taken by the teacher, administration, or police; rather, the lack of similar incidents of this kind of perceived overreaction -- notably involving students who are not minorities -- seems to point toward Ahmed's race and religion playing some part in how he was treated.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

I'd like to point out that the Supreme Court of the United States agrees with this point:
http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files...s-project-inc/

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions...-1371_m64o.pdf

For those of us who don't like wading through legal discussion, SCOTUS essentially said that proportional inequality is an acceptable demonstration of large-scale discrimination.


Edit:
...But, as Sean pointed out, this is a cultural, rather than a legal, discussion. Perhaps then take it with a grain of salt.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

I am all for discussing these problems with the desire for finding constructive solutions. I am happy that most of the mainstream national reaction was to defend Ahmed. If i was local to the school district, I would asking my elected officials for an explanation and the problem to be addressed.

Do we know the school's history of suspensions & referring youth to police? Without that you cannot claim proportional inequality is at play here. Nationally I can site examples of zero tolerance run amock without depending on institutional racism as a cause.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

That's a mature way to deal with this disagreement. I'm glad we could agree to disagree.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

What happened to Ahmed is wrong, wrong, wrong! 100% agreement! Blaming it solely (or partially) on racial injustice (as you earlier stated) is just as wrong (sans facts).

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

If the school honestly feared it may be a bomb, they would have evacuated and called the bomb squad. That's what happens when you take a "zero tolerance" approach.

As an aside, I'll remind you this is the town that passed an "anti-Shariah law" back in March.

But in reality, you're missing the forest for the trees here. Whether or not the individuals involved were impacted by racial prejudices, Ahmed has become a symbol about fighting against institutional and cultural racism. A few minutes of searching comments sections about this incident yielded these. There are articles out there about the link between engineering and terrorism. There is little doubt that institutional racism exists in the United States (and some painful parallels with Ahmed being "detained" while not "arrested"). Given this, it's important to use this as an example for good. Ahmed has power as a symbol. Even Ahmed knows as much.
“It’s worth it, once you realize what you’re fighting for,” he said.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

And? Is this yet another veiled accusation/inference? So who is on your "racial injustice perpetrator list"? Teacher, school, district, town, Texas?

This is the USA. Metaphorical trees matter.

I'm all for using Ahmed as an example or a cause if and when the facts are in. And they most certainly are not.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Ahmed was wrongly detained.
Ahmed is a student interested in engineering.
Ahmed is of a race that suffers institutional and cultural prejudices against it.

Those are the facts that matter. That's enough to justify the use of Ahmed as a symbol, and Ahmed accepts that.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Wrong - a key fact is missing. Was Ahmed wrongly detained BECAUSE of his race and/or culture? This is the key unknown factoid. By choosing Ahmed you are focusing public ire on persons and groups that may or may not deserve it. Also if there is something negative we do not know one risks damaging the cause and Ahmed. People will tune this kind of thing out - they already are. How many cause celebres have there been lately that turned out to be something different? Answer - too many.

Why not pick another symbol? There are plenty of documented possibilities.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

At this point, race has nothing to did with our side of the argument. No matter what race he is, it was all on the teacher and admin for thinking it was a hoax bomb. As media reports, Ahmed never stated it was a bomb at all. He called it his clock (or "invention" (which we all know is not)) from the get go. Let's throw out the race card. Assuming the was no racial prejudice, it still leaves that he was wrongly detained for what he called a clock from the start. That is the real issue. I love police. They were just doing their job when the school contacted them. This issue, in my humble opinion, lies on why the teacher and admin believed it to be a hoax bomb to begin with. Even without knowledge of wiring, it should be obvious by the red display it is the insides of a clock. The whole why the teacher and admin thought it was a hoax bomb thing is something I'll probably never understand.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

You don't have to be persecuted for your race to be held as a example of a American Muslim student interested in science and technology.

Symbols aren't something people "deserve." Symbols come from an opportunity. This is an opportunity to turn an awful event that happened into Ahmed into something positive for the American Muslim community, and the country in general. There is the right mix of public attention, social media buzz, and general media attention to allow for his moment to be used to influence things positively.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

"Deserve" applies to the persons, organizations and townships you were accusing of racial injustice, not the "symbol". Your last several posts have not mentioned racial injustice. So if we are, for some reason, in need of a symbol to advocate for technology savvy teenage American Muslims then Ahmed works.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

It was a clock! We know that. Ahmed's engineering teacher knew it was a clock. But should we expect the same of an English teacher? As I've stated for several times, it does not matter what Ahmed thought or what he claimed to any party involved. To be a hoax under Texas law the device need only "cause concern to an authority figure". The teacher and school administration had enough doubt to pass the decision to the police who decided it was not a hoax and that Ahmed was harmless. We do not know if anyone involved stated under oath they thought the device was an intentional hoax. They were confused and/or passing the buck and/or following zero tolerance policies. We do not know why the police detained Ahmed. Some sort of profiling could be a factor but we do not know that. Not yet.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

If you're waiting for the police department to release a statement stating that they are racist and discriminate against brown people, I think you'll be waiting a very long time. Otherwise, I'm not sure what additional evidence you're looking for. There's every indication that the town as a whole is very Islamophobic and the treatment Ahmed receiving was far above and beyond what is reasonable or what they police "had to do" for "standard operating procedures." That's enough for me, that's enough for almost everybody in this thread, and that's enough for the White House, Facebook, Microsoft, etc., etc., etc.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

We have the need to advocate for a technology savvy teenage American Muslim because of racial injustice.

We're never going to have definitive proof either way regarding the precise motivations of the individuals who detained Ahmed. That doesn't mean we can't take positive action. Nobody here is arguing those individuals be held accountable for those actions. What we're doing instead is taking a negative event and attempting to use it for positive gains.

Once again, if anyone truly feared it was a bomb or they blindly followed a "zero tolerance" policy that was in place, they would have evacuated the school and called the bomb squad.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Technically, the school employees thought it was a "hoax bomb", not a real bomb. It is still a criminal act to bring a hoax bomb to a school but they wouldn't have evacuated. Why they thought it was a hoax bomb is the big unknown:

It may well have been, and it is my opinion that it was, racist tendencies that made them think Ahmed was more likely to have brought in a fake bomb than he was to have brought in a clock. This is likely something that we will never know for certain via any kind of statement or facts.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Ahmed's father is a lawyer. He'll sue. Everything will come out during discovery. Otherwise there is no evidence this is racially motivated - none.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Really, and your evidence is what? That the mayor is a goofball? That they passed a law to make sure Sharia did not supplant constitutional law? (and before you ask why they did it there was a sharia court operating in the town)

Why would you make such a unwise generalization?

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

http://www.politifact.com/texas/stat...s-first-shari/

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/shariatexas.asp

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

I don't really have an opinion and do not know much about sharia. But this seems political, not cultural. We can't have two parallel systems of justice especially if one is not known for promoting the rights of women.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

So, the mayor and city council of a town passing a resolution to support a bill in the Texas Legislature that is within the legislature's authority (cf. Texas Constitution re: Courts) makes the town Islamophobic? I am confused.

By the way, Irving is a nice town. The Dallas Regional is held there. Office Space was shot there. Wonderful people that I've had the pleasure to be around several times in the past years.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Looks like Ontario and England might draw Lavery's ire also...

https://web.stanford.edu/group/sjir/pdf/Sharia_11.2.pdf

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Those articles weren't calling Irving Islamaphobic. They were disproving the false claim that there was a Sharia court in Irving.

It wasn't a "parallel justice system." It wasn't a Sharia Court. For all intents and purposes, it was a conflict mediator/arbitrator. There are similar services provided by Christian, Jewish, and non-religious groups.

And unless you're prepared to get into a PM debate regarding the treatment of women by other faiths, spare me your Islamaphobia regarding women's rights.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Hey - you posted them in a response to a request for evidence Irving was racially and/or culturally biased. Check the mirror.

I am fully prepared and you will not fair well. So now I am Islamaphobic? Is this your modus operandi - every person who disagrees with you is -ist or -phobic. Wow.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

It's pretty clear that Sean provided those links to demonstrate that your assertion that there was a sharia court operating in Irving was not true.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

A community-promoted arbitration mechanism, enforced by the a local cultural hierarchy, might as well be a court. It certainly can be to the young women trapped in the mechanisms. I refer you to the article I linked above.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Madison already posted the relevant portion. I posted two fact-checking sites in response to your comment regarding the presence of a Sharia Court in Irving, even without stripping it down to the barest portion of the quote as Madison did, the context should be obvious enough.


From now on, I suggest we take it to PMs. This is obvious not constructive. However, since you have accused this of being my "modus operandi" (and I would think you would have seen that elsewhere if that was my modus operandi), I feel the need to make this response public.

Your comment espoused a targeted negative stereotype only related to this thread's subject by the narrowest of tangents. That stereotype was, by your own admission, based out of ignorance ("I don't know much about Sharia law"). That comment was Islamaphobic.

You and I seem to have a fundamental disconnect regarding Islamaphobia and racial prejudices. Stating an action is Islamaphobic is not an attack on someone's character. Stating that our culture is prejudiced against Muslims in a fashion that led to the detainment and suspension of Ahmed is not an attack on the individuals who detained and suspended Ahmed. What it's doing is identifying an action that is based on ignorance or misunderstandings. It's attempting to correct a negative behavior. It doesn't mean that you're a bad person, simply that a mistake has been committed. Given the cultural prejudices in play here, it's important that incidents like these not be allowed to perpetuate, but rather be brought up. It's why it's important to raise Ahmed up as a symbol. If you wish to discuss women's rights in Islam, we can do so via PM rather than drag this thread further off course.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

You took this this thread down this road. The "tangent" is directly relevant. You started out accusing persons, schools, organizations and townships of "racial injustice". I may not "know much about Sharia law" but I know more than you. How much time have you spent in places where sharia is the law?

I am not Islamaphobic and I never have been. Just because you state something, in ignorance, does not make it true.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Since this needs to be reinforced.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

The young persons following this thread need to know that casting wide nets alleging horrible -ist and -phobic things is unacceptable. There is no shortage of fact-ridden scenarios to make worthy points. This Ahmed situation is, at least today, not one of them. If it turns out racial prejudice or cultural profiling is involved then let the responsible parties have it with both proverbial barrels. But that is not yet the case, not today.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Mods, can you close this thread or delete posts that should be taken to PM. This is not a productive conversation.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

He even called me a cyber bully... go figure...

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

Agreed

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

All I'm going to say can be summed up by the following statements--and it's a measure of how far offtrack the thread has been that none of them actually reference the original topic in any way, shape, or form:
1) Putting words in someone else's mouth is generally frowned on. (Applies to everybody, not just the quoted post--but quoted post is primary subject here.)
2) I'm pretty sure that whatever else was being discussed, the majority of folks reading the thread (that WEREN'T turned away by certain folks having a mostly one-on-one discussion) would have been in agreement had something like that actually been expressed. (Reference to discussion referenced by quoted post.)
3) I second/third/whatever-this-is the request to close/delete. I wouldn't mind seeing anything after about page 7 deleted, as that's when the thread went way offtrack. (Yep, that's right, half the thread or so.)

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

The other option is to stop restating positions & the thread will die a natural death. I am not a moderator so I don't have a say, but I am not a fan of locking threads unless they are spam or personal attacks.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

QFT.

As engineers, we love when we can measure and quantify things. Discrimination and bias is _very_ difficult to objectively judge except in the aggregate. This is partially because those who perpetrate discriminatory practices are unconscious that they are doing so...and also because in many cases, it is too easy to plausibly deny that any discrimination has occurred absent an extensive third party investigation (and even then, most of the evidence often winds up being circumstantial). If you examine 100 individual cases of suspected institutional discrimination, you probably end up being unable to prove wrongdoing in 90 of them. But clearly the macro effects of discrimination are present at a greater scale than if you assume institutional innocence in all disputed cases.

In light of this challenge, celebrating the positive aspects of this story (Ahmad's interest in STEM) while not specifically scapegoating his district, his community, Texas, etc., is as good an outcome as we could have hoped for. Besides, blaming racism on an individual, a town, or a state is extremely lazy and naive.

Re: Can someone in the Irving TX area "draft" this young man?
 

This thread is a trainwreck and being closed for that reason. I'm utterly disappointed by what I've seen here, especially blatant examples of racial insensitivity.

Let's try to do better next time a topic like this comes up.