Teacher asks 13-year-old Muslim student if she has a bomb
According to the New York Daily News, a teacher at Shiloh Middle School in Snellville, Georgia asked a Muslim student if there was a bomb in her backpack.
Osman told the newspaper she heard students gasp when her science teacher asked if she was carrying a bomb during class on December 7. The school district says the assistant principal investigated, talking with the family of the eighth grader and the teacher, and determined there was no ill-will. When the teenager didn’t immediately respond, the teacher asked her if she had a bomb in the bag.
“When you grow up, you have to know what you’re doing”, Aden said of the teacher.
Sloan Roach, spokeswoman, for Gwinnett County Public Schools, confirmed the incident happened.
The school is now apologizing to the student’s family.
Aden, a truck driver who runs his own grocery business, said he’s lived in the Atlanta area for 25 years and this is the first time he’s ever encountered this kind of Islamophobia.
“My daughter wanted to know why she was asking her that”, said the girl’s father – Abdirazik Aden.
‘I came there to learn… The incident comes days amid increasing anti-Muslim rhetoric sparked by an attack at a holiday party in San Bernardino California in which 14 people died and several others were injured.
According to the AJC, Aden nearly took his daughter out of that school.
(Carmela Brown/Parent) “I don’t think that they should have asked her that because of her religion”.
The teacher at Shiloh Middle School, who was a regular employee and not a substitute, has not been identified.
Principal Eli Welch III oversaw the investigation and personally apologized to Aden and his daughter.
The awkward moment between the student and her teacher caught the attention of Yusof Burke, board president of the Georgia Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.