Ahmed Mohamed, the Irving, Texas teenager who was falsely arrested because he made a clock that his school found bomb-like, has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against his old school district, his high school and the city. The suit says that the city of Irving has a pattern of discriminating against Muslims, and that the school has disproportionately punished black students in the past.
Mohamed and his family moved to Qatar in October. The Washington Post reports they filed suit after returning to Irving in June for summer vacation. A previous demand letter his attorneys sent to the school district threatened to sue for $15 million, but the actual suit doesn’t name a dollar amount.
The suit says that Mohamed faced “wrongful interrogation” by both the school and the police due to his race and religion. Both the school district and the city told WFAA they deny the allegations. The city also implied that there are more facts to be revealed about why they had that ninth grade kid arrested:
“The city of Irving is prepared to vigorously defend itself and the justifiable actions it took in this matter. The legal process will allow all facts to be revealed, and the city welcomes that opportunity. The city of Irving’s top priority is to ensure the safety and security of its children and the entire community. The city will continue to take its duty and responsibility to serve and protect the public seriously.”
Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne will probably come into play during this lawsuit, given that she previously expressed a fear that “sharia courts” were taking over North Texas. (They aren’t.) She also implied that the Mohamed family had somehow engineered the clock incident as a publicity stunt, while sitting on a panel with someone who thought it was maybe an “influence operation” for the forces of jihad.
Mohamed told the Washington Post that life has been difficult since the family moved. “I lost a lot of things in my life,” he told the paper. “The number one thing people think about me is that I’m living ‘the life’ ... But I can’t build anymore. My dad doesn’t have a job anymore. I moved from my house to an apartment. I lost my place for building things. Over [in Qatar] it’s very boring, I can’t do anything. The only thing I can do is use the Internet.”