By Melissa Maas/Gator Galaxy

On Monday, Sept. 14 Texas high school student Ahmed Mohamed was arrested for bringing his homemade clock to school because school authorities thought it a bomb.

By mid-week Mohamed and his story was all over social media. With hopes of becoming an engineer, Mohamed was excited to bring his clock to school. His teacher presumed the clock was a threat to her. Mohamed was arrested and escorted out of the school in handcuffs. Later when questioned about the so-called “hoax bomb,” Mohamed simply said, “It is just a clock.”

“I would be confused and frustrated if something like this ever happened to me,” said Riley Weitz (10). Weitz said she would go along with the whole situation and prove her accusers wrong. “Thankfully the charges were dropped.”

CNN journalists Ashley Fantz, Steve Almasy and AnneClair Stapleton write, “Outrage over the incident — with many saying the student was profiled because he’s Muslim — spread on social media.”

Nathaniel Solorzano (12) feels Mohamed was “racially stereotyped, and ridiculed.” “If he was Caucasian, I don’t think he would have been arrested, just questioned, said Solorzano. “He looks like an honest kid, he was just taking pride in his project.”

Things have turned around for Mohamed. The same day of Mohamed’s arrest, President Obama invited him to the White House for Astronomy Night in October, praising Mohamed for his love of science.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook creator, also invited Mohamed to his company headquarters. Zuckerberg posted via Twitter, “Having the skill and ambition to build something cool should lead to applause, not arrest. The future belongs to people like Ahmed.”