Live: Suffolk School Board Meeting

On August 10, 2023, the Suffolk City School Board overtly discriminated against local citizen Angela Kilgore as she spoke during a Board-approved public comment period, cutting her off and prohibiting her from saying a prayer for the Board and the students of Suffolk City public schools.

Specifically, when Ms. Kilgore announced at the end of her comments that she was going to pray for the Board and the schools, Board Chairman Tyron Riddick announced, "It's not permitted at this time." 1 "To pray for our schools is not permitted?"

Kilgore asked. "That's correct," Riddick responded. 2 He later claimed that to allow a citizen to pray would be unconstitutional. "This is not the place, per the law." 3 After Riddick shut down Kilgore and announced that the Board would be in recess, a number of citizens spontaneously stood and quietly recited the Lord's Prayer. In response,
Riddick ordered police officers to have the citizens removed from the room. 4 "Conduct unbecoming will not be tolerated," he stated. 5

As the U.S. Supreme Court recently held in Kennedy v. Bremerton School
District, a government may not seek to "punish an individual for engaging in a personal religious observance, based on a mistaken view that it has a duty to suppress religious observances even as it allows comparable secular speech. The Constitution neither mandates nor tolerates that kind of discrimination." 142 S. Ct. 2407, 2415 (2022).