She’s 16, a self-proclaimed nerd who loves Harry Potter and Facebook. But Jessica Ahlquist is also an atheist who has incensed this heavily Roman Catholic city with a successful lawsuit to get a prayer removed from her high school auditorium’s wall, where it has hung for 49 years.

 

A federal judge ruled this month the prayer’s presence at Cranston High School West was unconstitutional. In the weeks since, residents have crowded school board meetings to demand an appeal, Jessica has received threats and the police have escorted her at school.

 

State Rep. Peter Palumbo, a Cranston Democrat, called Jessica “an evil little thing” on a talk radio show last week, and three florists refused to deliver her roses sent from the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The group has filed a complaint with the Rhode Island Commission for Human Rights.