Education / Schools, Minority Issues

3 Questions About The Texas Boy With A Homemade Clock

As a law student, professor, or lawyer, how would you answer these legal questions about Ahmed Mohamed's situation?

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“People, people we are the same / No we’re not the same / Cause we don’t know the game / What we need is awareness / We can’t get careless.” — Chuck D, Public Enemy

Not since the days of Public Enemy had someone faced such scrutiny for carrying around a clock. On Monday, Texas high school freshman Ahmed Mohamed, 14, was arrested and detained for bringing a homemade clock to school as a class experiment. A teacher was alarmed by his invention and believed Mohamed’s clock could have been some type of infrastructure for a bomb. Accordingly, school officials reported Mohamed and his clock to the police. He was ultimately released with no charges, but was still officially suspended from school until yesterday.

The suspension may not matter much, as he has stated that he will probably be transferring schools. But in light of this misunderstanding, many question why the school administration upheld Mohamed’s suspension. Irving, Texas Mayor Beth Van Duyne stated that school and law enforcement officials were simply following school protocols when a “possible threat” or “criminal act” was discovered. In addition, many others argue that the police were just doing their job.

Currently, the most popular questions on social media regarding Mohamed’s case seem to be:

  1. Should school officials have acted differently in dealing with Mohamed and his clock?
  2. Did the police act appropriately in interrogating, handcuffing, and detaining Mohamed?
  3. Does Mohamed have any type of legal case against school officials or the police? (In other words, does Mohamed need a lawyer, or is this another example of our society being too litigious?)

As a law student, professor, or lawyer, how would you answer these three questions?

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Renwei Chung is a 2L at Southern Methodist University School of Law. He has an undergraduate degree from Michigan State University and an MBA from the University of Chicago. He is the author of The Golden Rule: How Income Inequality Will Ruin America (affiliate link). He has been randomly blogging about anything and everything at Live Your Truth since 2008. He was born in California, raised in Michigan, and lives in Texas. He has a yellow lab named Izza and enjoys old-school hip hop, the NBA and stand up paddleboarding (SUP). He is really interested in startups, entrepreneurship, and innovative technologies. You can contact Renwei by email at projectrenwei@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter (@renweichung), or connect with him on LinkedIn.

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