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Editorial: Overreaction in clock-bomb mix-up has chilling effect
Dallas Morning News:A studious-looking high school freshman wearing a NASA T-shirt was led from his Irving school in handcuffs Tuesday in what appears to be an overreaction to an electronics project he wanted to show his engineering teacher. What makes this episode particularly troublesome is the possibility that 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed was more a target of suspicion because he is Muslim.
Keeping students safe is, of course, paramount for all teachers and administrators, and and a sense of caution often entails making precarious judgment calls. That’s particularly challenging in the moment. But the school needs to be a safe learning environment for all students. That was not afforded to Ahmed. Did Irving school and police officials place undue weight on Mohamed’s ethnicity and religion, assuming terrorist motivations?
The atmosphere in Irving makes it ripe for such controversy. Mayor Beth Van Duyne drew national attention this year with a months-long campaign asserting that Muslims were trying to impose Shariah law on U.S. courts.
Keeping students safe is, of course, paramount for all teachers and administrators, and and a sense of caution often entails making precarious judgment calls. That’s particularly challenging in the moment. But the school needs to be a safe learning environment for all students. That was not afforded to Ahmed. Did Irving school and police officials place undue weight on Mohamed’s ethnicity and religion, assuming terrorist motivations?
The atmosphere in Irving makes it ripe for such controversy. Mayor Beth Van Duyne drew national attention this year with a months-long campaign asserting that Muslims were trying to impose Shariah law on U.S. courts.