{"id":4232,"date":"2015-10-02T17:15:09","date_gmt":"2015-10-02T17:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=4232"},"modified":"2015-10-02T17:15:22","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T17:15:22","slug":"groups-condemn-racial-profiling-of-texas-student","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=4232","title":{"rendered":"Groups Condemn Racial Profiling of Texas Student"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>by Eric Galatas<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>IRVING, Texas &#8211; Civil rights groups are calling on the Irving Independent School District to reverse the suspension of Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year-old boy who arrived at school on Monday excited to show his teachers a digital clock he made &#8211; but was taken away hours later in handcuffs.<\/p>\n<p>Edward Espinoza, executive director at Progress Texas, says his organization has launched an online petition supporting Mohamed\u2019s case.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4233\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4233\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4233\" src=\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/gr-48165-1-1.jpg\" alt=\"Civil rights groups are calling on the Irving Independent School District to reverse the suspension of a student for bringing a homemade digital clock to school. Photo: Irving Independent School District.\" width=\"600\" height=\"373\" srcset=\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/gr-48165-1-1.jpg 600w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/gr-48165-1-1-300x187.jpg 300w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/gr-48165-1-1-405x252.jpg 405w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-4233\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Civil rights groups are calling on the Irving Independent School District to reverse the suspension of a student for bringing a homemade digital clock to school. Photo: Irving Independent School District.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\u201cWhat we\u2019re asking the district to do is very simple,\u201d he says. \u201cThey should reverse the suspension, they should apologize to the family and they should re-evaluate their disciplinary policies. Sounds like they might also need some cultural sensitivity training as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The MacArthur High School freshman was interrogated by police and suspended for three days for bringing a homemade clock to school. Mohamed, an aspiring engineer, fell under suspicion when one of his teachers thought the clock looked like a bomb. Even after Mohamed\u2019s explanation was confirmed to be true, the Irving Independent School District stood behind its decision to suspend him.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Dallas Morning News, Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd said at a press conference Wednesday that Mohamed would not be charged, and found no evidence the teenager meant to cause alarm. Boyd also denied Mohamed\u2019s skin color was a factor in the incident.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, the ACLU of Texas urged the Irving school district to take steps to ensure that \u201cblanket prejudices and the baseless suspicions they engender don\u2019t deprive students of an educational environment where their talents can thrive.\u201d Espinoza agrees.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a clear case of racial profiling on a kid who was just trying to work on an engineering project,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s the kind of thing that we should be encouraging, not discouraging.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>President Obama posted a tweet on Wednesday calling Mohamed\u2019s clock \u201ccool,\u201d and invited the boy to visit the White House. The president\u2019s post said, \u201cWe should inspire more kids like you to like science. It\u2019s what makes America great.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Eric Galatas IRVING, Texas &#8211; Civil rights groups are calling on the Irving Independent School District to reverse the suspension of Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year-old boy who arrived at school on Monday excited to show his teachers a digital clock he made &#8211; but was taken away hours later in handcuffs. Edward Espinoza, executive [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4232"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4234,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4232\/revisions\/4234"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}