> Ahmed was arrested for making while brown

This line really bothers me. Probably because I simply don't think this way. I don't see color in people.

It is because of this, perhaps wrongly, that I can't accept the idea that this kid was arrested because he is brown. I think a white kid would have been arrested just the same.

Why?

Because the problem, as I see it, is our schools, in some areas, are bastions of ignorance. And this goes beyond K12 into colleges and university.

The problem in this case is an "Engineering" teacher who probably isn't anything close to an engineer. In other words, incapable of evaluating what the kid actually built. For this teacher what was in this little box might as well have been alien technology.

Why do I say this? Because it would have taken any engineer all 30 seconds --if that-- to understand what this kid built.

This could not have been the first time this kid brought some of his work to school. It sounds like he is really into making stuff. His "Engineering" teacher should have known this and should have known his profile.

My oldest kid had a "robotics" class in middle school. In quotes because the teacher would come into the room, sit down and browse the 'net on her iPad while the kids did whatever they wanted. She got to earn extra cash by pretending to teach this class. The union protected her from any potential consequence of her ineptitude. The only reason the other kids learned anything is because my son actually taught them (we have an FLL table in our living room).

Now in college, he's come across the same sort of thing. A calculus 1 "professor" who quite literally copies from the book onto the blackboard and will not answer any questions during class. Students are asked to write the questions down and they might be answered during the next class. She clearly knows nothing. And, to be politically incorrect, is likely to have gotten her job due to "equal opportunity" rules. If I didn't devote a serious amount of time to help my kid Calculus he would have come out of that semester way behind in his understanding. I feel sorry for the other kids if they didn't have a parent with the requisite knowledge and the time to do the teacher's job at home.

Yet in another case, a professor in an arts class devoted half of nearly every class meeting to a monologue about her ongoing attempts to become an actress, professional dancer, whatever. No tests. No teaching. Just ranting about various aspects of her personal life every class. At the end everyone got an A. Sad. Truly sad.

There are many problems with our schools. I feel a huge part of it has to do with ignorance, incompetence and union contracts that prevent us from a "survival of the fittest" approach to evolving good schools with truly intelligent, well-informed, balanced, knowledgeable teachers.

Then there's the deeper political element. Teaching, K12 through University, is largely populated with a wide spectrum of people of Liberal ideology. There was a study [2] that concluded some majors have a ratio of 44:1 in favor of left to extreme-left teachers. And, with that, comes the use of their position to indoctrinate kids --consciously or not.

If you don't think this is a problem, please take a moment to go through the mental exercise of inverting that ratio. How about 44:1 extreme right teachers? Or, today's favorite punching bag, 44:1 Islamic extremist teachers?

Right. The extremes are not good for anybody. Before you jump-up in joy if you like the idea of academia being permeated by left-leaning teachers you need to take a rocket up to low earth orbit and consider what that looks like from many points of view and what the consequences of a mono-ideology might have on society. As an Atheist and moderate Libertarian I feel I am firmly rooted somewhere around the center of both ideologies in many ways. I am with most Liberal social ideas while wanting to see less government intervention and a Conservative fiscal approach to things. Having a 44:1 ratio of teachers pushing one ideology on the kids is a bad thing, no matter where you are standing.

And so, there's also a high likelihood that the teachers who are ignorant, acted like morons and had this kid arrested are Liberal and highly intolerant [1]. Nobody wants to talk about how, for some strange reason, the Left has become the most intolerant group over the last several decades. Principles are great to put down on paper, but, if you don't follow them, what do they mean?

This kid was arrested due to everyone around him being ignorant morons.

A few videos to consider:

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTd4-WXw2SM

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVE-7OFk_tk