Given the public support for #IStandWithAhmed, I can’t help but compare the differences in reactions to 2015 Ahmed Mohamed vs 2007 Star Simpson (@starsandrobots).

In 2007, SS, an MIT sophomore, was arrested at gunpoint for wearing a homemade LED star while picking up her boyfriend from the airport. She was subsequently hung out to dry by MIT with an immediate denouncement the day-of, calling her behavior “reckless” as the administration turned the other way. Yet given a few years, it’s not hard to see how Ahmed’s making passion would have grown him into an SS, an MIT hacker behaving just like her — a hacker who’s institutions would similarly fail him.

This story is about experiencing the consequences of letting the obsessive cult of security dominate our progressive desire to innovate.

Given this event’s strength of public opinion optics (skinny ethnic NASA nerd arrested via racist school admins’ report to racist cops), we should not waste energy on well-worn themes we already know to be true — racism bad, makerness good — but use it to advance a more nuanced conversation on better balancing our cult of security with our cult of innovation.

How can we overcome a culture of fear, threats lurking around every corner, to clear room for a culture of creation? How can we better build societal institutions that can move beyond fear to support both an Ahmed and an SS?

Note: Following the Star Simpson case, two thoughtful MIT professors penned the worthy Avoiding a Rush to Judgement: Implications of the Star Simpson Affair.