A federal judge has ordered a prayer banner removed from Cranston High School West auditorium after five decades after a lawsuit brought by a 16-year-old student and the Rhode Island branch of the American Civil Liberties Union. “The Government must not appear to take sides on issues of religious beliefs” U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Lagueux wrote in his Jan. 11 ruling. “The purpose of the prayer banner was clearly religious in nature” and “No amount of debate can make the school Prayer anything other than a prayer, and a Christian one at that.” The case has sparked numerous threats of violence against the student, and for now the school district has covered the banner but not removed it.