Has no one (in the media or at the school) picked up on the fact - the positive fact - that this 14 year old was looking for approval/praise from his teachers outside of his classroom work?! He mentions more than once that he wanted to impress his teachers. Let’s take THAT and run away with it - the impact that teachers can have positively on those that are looking to bloom in school.
If this kid has a good reputation at the school, you would think that would count for something.
Still, with invites from White House, Caltech and MIT, he will recover.
Has anyone mentioned the letter that was sent out?
http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/16/9337857/ahmed-mohamed-texas-school-district-letter
Just watched the interview. I think there was some kind of audio delay between the two places. I loved that they got a female, apparently Jewish professor from MIT to talk to him encouragingly on air. A good lesson and example all round.
Although I can’t help cringing at the thought that if he doesn’t get into MIT four years from now, there will be stories bemoaning the fact. Luckily his father seems more well-balanced and media-savvy than the Texas guy of Indian background who went on a publicity campaign several years ago when his son with a 2400 (very much supoerscored! 
) didn’t get into Harvard or wherever.
That letter…(shaking head) (rolling eyes)
Not sure of the timing, but obviously the school had to send out something rather than just let the rumor mill go to work. Unlikely that they expected the story to go viral. I don’t see that their letter is so awful. It doesn’t accuse anyone of anything or leap to any conclusions. Telling people to review the policy with their kids is not a bad idea.
I mean, what should they say? They are obligated to maintain confidentiality as much as possible. That doesn’t leave them with much.
There’s always an audio delay with that kind of interview, but compare Ahmed’s terse responses to the more typical response style of the Islamic spokeswoman. It was hard to get information out of Ahmed. He answered the questions in the shortest way possible, volunteering nothing, even when interviewed by someone who was obviously sympathetic.
I’m sure that’s just the way he is. My son is like that. Trying to have a phone conversation with him is like trying to talk to a Magic Eight Ball: yes, no, maybe, try again later. But I think the clueless school administrators and police misinterpreted Ahmed’s normal laconic style as evasiveness. IMO Ahmed’s arrest and school suspension were both indefensible as well as incomprehensibly stupid, but I’m interested in why the police would say something as idiotic as that Ahmed just described his clock as a clock and didn’t give “broader explanation.”
@“Cardinal Fang” This boy didn’t seem on the spectrum at all. I thought he looked amazingly relaxed for a kid thrust into the national limelight. Perhaps the slight delay between each question and his response caused you to think that but the delay is from the questions being posed remotely. He was attentive to the questions and answered exactly what was asked. As for him not likely to go off on a long explanation of a “broader reason” for building the clock, why would he if the reason was he wanted to show his teachers what he could do? In other words, there is no broader reason.
“Telling people to review the policy with their kids is not a bad idea.”
How is a 14-year-old kid supposed to realize that idiot administrators will think that anything with wires and a circuit board is a bomb? Someone needs to tell those administrators that bombs have explosives in them, and if it doesn’t have explosives, it’s not a bomb.
I made a butter churn in HS. I thought it was cool. If I was interrogated by the cops as to the “broader reason” behind bringing it to school…I still, as an adult, would have no idea what to say.
I’d like to know what the kid did say when the cops asked him why he brought it to school. What he should have said was, “I wanted to show it to Mr. XXX, my engineering teacher, because I thought he would think it was cool.” Maybe that’s what he did say.
I suspect the clock in that letter would come under the heading of a ‘look-alike’ weapon (ie that a clock could be construed as a bomb). What is interesting in the list of things you can’t bring to school, they mention BB gun or air gun, they mention something that looks like a gun (ie a paperweight or toy pistol), it bans ammunition, but it nowhere bans a student bringing a real gun to school. So a kid could bring a gun to school, show it to a teacher, and nothing would happen to him, as long as he didn’t have ammunition…so a gun couldn’t be perceived as a threat or a hoax item? (and yes, it could be covered under “item to cause bodily harm” in the first line, but it is interesting they ban bb guns and air guns.
And the rest of it? Not calling the parents (I don’t know Texas law, but in NJ and NY cops cannot question a minor without a parent present, that is a big no no, a kid cannot waive their miranda rights as far as I know, because they are thought not to be able to understand them), and the fact that the kid was arrested and taken away and the attitude of the cops in general. I could even see the kid being suspended, if he violated a policy that bans electronic devices (which doesn’t seem to be in the student code of conduct), but arresting him, and treating him like a criminal? Sorry, even based on these ‘new facts’ I don’t see Hunts looking for more details. Detaining a kid and questioning him without the parents? There is zero excuse for that, unless Texas decided that people from the time they are in utero are fully considered an adult. If he was suspended for violating school policy, where is the policy? Are they interpreting the ‘look alike’ thing, or if not, where is the ban on electronics? Where is the language saying a kid shouldn’t bring devices that might look like bombs? Quite honestly, the student policy is so nebulous it could also get a kid put in jail for bringing a big mac to school and sharing it with fellow students “Can cause bodily harm”, they basically made it up on the fly with this kid, probably because he was muslim so of course if he had a clock, he was a terrorist, the school and cops basically pulled a Roger Goodell, they pull rules out of thin air and claim he violated some mysterious policy.
At the same time, Texas governor has signed a bill allowing conceal carry weapons on college campus across the state. Clocks? No, they can be bombs. Real guns? Sure, it’s perfectly okay!
He isn’t. But it is still a good idea to tell people to review the policy, given that a student has fallen afoul of it. (I haven’t seen the policy, so I have no idea what it says.)
Obviously it was not a real bomb–and obviously the school knew it wasn’t, or they would have evacuated the place-- but it could have been a hoax bomb. Which I assume we would all agree should be against school rules.
Look, I’m on the kid’s side, and I think it could easily have been determined that the kid was not trying a bomb hoax without getting the police involved. (In fact, it would require a complete reinterpretation of everything that happened and everything he said to make this into a hoax situation.)
@NovVADad99 makes an excellent point! 
BTW, my kid would probably have been equally laconic at his age. And he is very–dare I say it --articulate when he wants to be.
An interesting take on the matter:
A flight attendant friend of mine said that if someone tried to bring that onto a plane (no matter what their name was), they would have been taken aside and investigated. That’s the world we live in.
And would they have been arrested? I’m guessing no.
Indeed. And it is also true that if one tried to bring a holstered handgun onto a plane one would be taken aside and investigated–at the very least! Yet one can walk the streets of Texas with said gun without a peep being uttered by the cops.
The comparison is meaningless.
But there’s no constitutional guarantee to protect open carry of clocks!
Given that you can’t bring a bottle of shampoo on a plane, I agree it’s not the best comparison.
But also, as part of ghe crazy plane thing, they tend to cancel flights, evacuate airports, etc. You know, things that indicate some sense that the passengers need to be protected. There was none of that here. Nobody did anything to protect the students/staff from the “threat.”