A 20-year-old Black cheerleader from Lawrence, Kansas, is trending across different social media platforms after saying that her coach removed her off her school’s cheerleading team for sporting long braids.
The coach, who was a White woman, had Talyn Jefferson kicked out. She’s been on the team for more than two years.
The junior year student says she was asked to get rid of her hair bonnet during an Ottawa University cheerleading practice earlier this month. Jefferson declined to do so since her long braids might hit a teammate in the face.
Following to the cheerleader’s refusal, Casey Jamerson, the team’s coach, went on a racist rant over her nearly 3-foot-long hairdo. Afterwards, Jefferson was then sent home early from practice, and eventually kicked off the squad.
Currently, Jefferson is planning to transfer to another school. Speaking on the incident, Jefferson says, “I got kicked off because I was standing up for myself against microaggressive comments that the coach made toward me, that made me and others very uncomfortable. Instead of the university addressing the fact that the comments were out of line and made me uncomfortable and the coach should have apologized, their solution was to kick me off instead.”
She adds, “They claim I got kicked off because I defy authority and I have anger issues, but like I’ve said, that is not true. I have no type of misconduct issues at that school.”
