Ahmed Mohamed, a Muslim ninth grader, arrested over homemade clock

A 14-year-old Texas boy named Ahmed Mohamed has this week gone from a nerdy high school freshman, to a suspect in handcuffs, to a nationally known figure personally invited by President Obama to the White House.

Ahmed has also become a viral hashtag, #IStandWithAhmed, and a symbol of several distinct American problems: security obsessions in schools, racial profiling in policing, diversity issues in science education, and most especially Islamophobia. And it all revolves around a clock.

It’s not hard to figure out why school officials and police in Irving, Texas, decided to arrest, interrogate, and suspend a 14-year-old student who had brought in a homemade clock. The student, Ahmed Mohamed, comes from a family that is Muslim and of Sudanese descent.

This is textbook racial and religious profiling: Mohamed looked like what the Irving police thought terrorists looked like, so they treated him differently.