[2][3] News of the incident went viral – initially on Twitter – with allegations by commentators that the actions of the school officials and police were due to their stereotyping of Mohamed based on his Sudanese ancestry and Muslim faith.

Many of them praised Mohamed for his ingenuity and creativity, and he was invited to participate in a number of high-profile events related to encouraging youth interest in science and technology.

Although Mohamed was cleared in the final police investigation, he became the subject of conspiracy theories – many of them contradictory, citing no evidence, and conflicting with established facts – which claimed that the incident was a deliberate hoax.

[2][4] On November 23, 2015, Ahmed's family threatened to sue the City of Irving and the school district for civil rights violations and physical and mental anguish unless they received written apologies and compensation of $15 million.

[7] The family also sued conservative talk show hosts Glenn Beck, Ben Shapiro, and another Fox News commentator for lesser amounts on the grounds of defamation of character.

In interviews with local media, Mohamed said that he wanted to show the engineering teacher at school what he had done over the weekend; he had taken apart a clock and rebuilt it inside a pencil case that resembled a small briefcase.

[12] He told Larry Wilmore on The Nightly Show that it took him only "10 or 20 minutes" to put it together and that he had built more complicated items in the past but that the clock was simple, using some parts that were "scrapped off" so that it was easier.

[15] The Dallas Morning News commented, "[s]ome of these creations looked much like the infamous clock – a mess of wires and exposed circuits stuffed inside a hinged case, perhaps suspicious to some.

[2][3] Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd said that "the officers pretty quickly determined that they weren't investigating an explosive device", and that Mohammed was arrested over the prospect that it was a "hoax bomb".

[28][29] The lawsuit alleged that officers racially profiled him and treated him differently on the basis of his race and ethnicity, starting with when “Yep, that’s who I thought it was,” with the implication being that they expected a student with a Muslim name to be the culprit.

[35] A hearing was held on December 16, 2016, during which claims against the defendants KDFW Fox 4 and Ben Ferguson were dismissed with prejudice (meaning the suit could not be re-filed, though the decision could be appealed).

[37][38][39] School district spokeswoman Lesley Weaver said, "We are never going to take any chances for any of their safety [...] It doesn't matter what child would have brought a suspicious looking item.

[41] According to The Dallas Morning News, Mohamed's family never received the request to release his records, because the school district mailed it to the wrong lawyer; the letter was later sent to the correct attorneys.

[53] Mohamed's uncle said another reason for the family's leaving the United States was fear caused by all the attacks they received, the conspiracy theories, rumors, and unwarranted accusations of terrorist links.

After the initial report in The Dallas Morning News caught his attention, tech blogger Anil Dash created an online form for people to send supportive messages and offer ideas about how to encourage Mohamed.

Dash, with more than 500,000 followers on Twitter, was among the earliest to widely publicize the story through social media, and was first to tweet the photo of Mohamed handcuffed, wearing a faded NASA T-shirt and glasses.

[62][63] Google invited Mohamed to attend its science fair, urging him to bring the clock along; when he arrived he "received a warm welcome, touring the booths and taking pictures with finalists".

The meeting was reportedly cordial and Bashir expressed the hope that young Sudanese like Ahmed would help “write a new [chapter in] history for an advanced and developed Sudan”.

"[76] After his speech, the President talked with Mohamed briefly and hugged him, in addition to looking through a telescope and being placed on a call with the crew of the International Space Station.

[80] In a debate among 2016 Republican presidential candidates, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said that he did not think that a 14-year-old should ever be arrested for bringing a clock to school but defended the police who were "worried about security and safety issues".

(Section 52.025)"[83] The letter went on to say that reports about the incident suggested "that Ahmed Mohamed was systematically profiled based on his faith and ethnicity both by the Irving Police Department and MacArthur High School".

[23] Rose Hackman of The Guardian stated, "The incident caused international outrage, with critics claiming such drastic treatment would never have occurred had the teenager not been Muslim.

"[85] Writing in The Texas Observer, Patrick Michels said the Irving school district has a history of overly-punitive criminalization of childhood behavior and similarly called the arrest an example of "school-to-prison" thinking.

[86] The Wall Street Journal commentator James Taranto said he believes what happened to Mohamed is not uncommon; he points to a similar story from 2001 in New Jersey, in which Jason Anagnos, a nine-year-old non-Muslim boy, was arrested, charged and convicted for having brought a fake bomb along on a gifted-and-talented class field trip.

[88] Kevin D. Williamson, a correspondent for the conservative magazine National Review, argued that the media was pushing a case for exaggerated Islamophobia, "because it can be used to further a story that the media already want to tell: that the United States is morally corrupt and irredeemably racist; that Muslims are under siege; that white privilege blinds the majority of Americans to the corruption at the heart of everything red, white, and blue", stating we now live in a time of "race-hustling and grievance-mongering".

[90][91][92] The Dallas Morning News and other media sources, including The Washington Post, referred to some comments and claims that emerged in the aftermath of the incident as conspiracy theories, reporting that most of them "cited no evidence, contradicted each other, or clashed with known facts".

[97] The Washington Post and Time also noted that Internet-spawned "conspiracy theories" about Mohamed's motivations were partially responsible for his family choosing to leave the United States.

Get involved: go.nasa.gov/1NxQJIz Terri Burke, executive director of the ACLU of Texas, stated, "Islamophobia, and probably racism, certainly played a role in Ahmed's ordeal, but the fact is overzealous administrators, zero-tolerance policies, and law enforcement officers ill-equipped to deal with schoolchildren have compromised educational environments throughout the country.

"[99] According to an article in The New York Observer, the widely circulated photograph of Ahmed in handcuffs wearing a NASA T-shirt has brought attention to the topic of STEM education (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) in America.