Oct 20, 2005 / 22:00 pm
5-year old Antonio Peck had no idea when he turned in his homework assignment--a poster about protecting the environment--that it would land him in federal court.
Peck, then a kindergarten student at Baldwinsville, NY’s Catherine McNamara Elementary School, originally turned in his poster-assignment to his teacher in 1999. It featured, among other things, a cut out picture of Jesus--something he reportedly thought applicable to the environment, and the assignment.
School officials however, felt otherwise. The rejected a first version of the poster and folded Antonio’s second attempt in half, in order to obscure the image of a kneeling Jesus they thought to be too religious in nature.
In 2000, a New York federal court ruled that the school had the right to censor the poster on the grounds of separation of church and state.