US teacher calls Muslim child terror example

Chicago, Sept. 13: A public school teacher in Chicago could lose her job after she called the only Muslim student in her class an example of what a terrorist looks like. The family of 13-year-old Saleh Choudhary wants the unidentified sixth-grade teacher, who has been reassigned since the incident last spring, to be barred from ever setting foot in a classroom again.

"The family does want her fired, they don’t believe that she should be teaching students anymore," said Christina Abraham with the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The teacher allegedly used Saleh as an example when she described a homicide bombing, saying that he would carry explosives on board a plane and blow it up.

Though the 13-year-old declined to speak to the media about the ordeal, his brother Mohammad Fahad Choudhary said that "before he even took his backpack off, he had tears in his eyes already" when he came home from school that day.

"Everybody started teasing him and calling him a terrorist after the comments were made by the teacher," Mohammad said.

The Pakistani-American family met for more than two hours Thursday with Chicago Public Schools officials in a closed-door session, according to local media. A federal mediator presided over the meeting. Another session was scheduled for next month.

—ANI