Candy cane case is declined

The U.S. Supreme Court won’t hear an appeal of a case involving a fifth-grader who tried to sell candy canes with a religious message at his Michigan school, according to the Religion News Service.

The court announced earlier this month that it has declined to hear the case of Joel Curry, whose petition was filed by the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Alliance Defense Fund. 

The RNS said Curry was 11 in 2003 when he made candy cane-style Christmas ornaments with notes that school officials considered “religious literature.” The notes attached to the ornaments, titled “The Meaning of the Candy Cane,” referred to Jesus six times and God twice.

Curry copied the message from an ornament at a Christian bookstore, according to the RNS, and he made the ornaments as part of a class project in which students developed and sold products.

He wasn’t disciplined although school officials asked him to remove the message. When he did, he received an “A” on the assignment. 

Curry, who is now 15, told the RNS that he is disappointed with the high court’s ruling, but he doesn’t think about the incident much any more because it happened a long time ago.