gimme a J!Like, it was one thing when she was getting attitude from her cheerleading coach Marilou Braswell for not participating in team bible study and prayer groups, but when the coach demoted her from the football cheering squad and into the less prestigious men’s and women’s basketball squad, well, Jewish cheerleader Jaclyn Steele was like, oy – enough!

Coach Marilou Braswell was fired for “discourteous and disruptive behavior” when she told the cheerleading squad about the discrimination allegations, according to Braswell’s termination letter.

In order to curry favor with Braswell, cheerleaders felt obliged to participate in prayer groups, Baptist style Bible study and had to “act” religious. Braswell seemed to have issues with Steele’s Judaism as well as with another male cheerleader’s homosexuality.

“It created an atmosphere where if you were not Christian or didn’t want to participate, you weren’t treated as well as the other girls,” said Deborah Lauter, southeast region director for the Anti-Defamation League, which helped Steele with her complaint to the university.

Braswell claimed the prayers were nonsectarian and that once prayers were even said in Hebrew. Braswell will be appealing her firing. In the meantime, Jaclyn, you’ll be relieved to know, is back with the Football squad, shakin’ her tuchus and violating the sabbath, but with her Jewish integrity, like otherwise intact. Like totally.

Yes. The only reason this story is here is so that I could put up a graphic of a cheerleader in a Jewlicious uniform. Sorry.

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About the author

ck

Founder and Publisher of Jewlicious, David Abitbol lives in Jerusalem with his wife, newborn daughter and toddler son. Blogging as "ck" he's been blocked on twitter by the right and the left, so he's doing something right.

9 Comments

  • Down with Cheertatorship! Hurray for Cheerocracy!

    5 points if you get the reference.

  • I KNEW THAT! But I was busy working and that sneaky miss jennifer silver beat me to those sweet, sweet 5 points. Dang yo.

    OH it has been B-roughten!

  • Thanks for the comments Susan. I can tell you that I am indeed sorry the coach lost her job. I can also tell you that I feel an affinity for all people of faith – as long as they give me the same respect I give them. This was indeed a bit of a sticky situation but my understanding is that the coach had ample opportunity to help her case and was dismissed after being warned several times to cease her divisive behavior. Had she been Jewish and pushing kabbala down the throats of her charges, I would have advocated the same thing. Had the coach been gay and forcing… uh… gayness down the throats of the cheerleaders, same thing. In any case, in lawsuit happy USA, if the coach feels she was unjustly dismissed, she has recourse to the courts …. haven’t heard anything about that yet.

  • this is the stupidest case ive ever seen, and the stupidest part of it is that the coach was fired. With a stupid site named Jewlicious.com i would have also expected that you ppl would be backing the cheerleader up. im not jewish or christian, but i can tell you flat off that Jaclyne Steele played the religios-trump card. The evidence clearly shows that the coach did not make the choice based on religion.
    1: there was another jewish cheerleader on the squad, which makes saying the coach is religious-bias very much redundant.
    2: the coach had been with the school district for over 11 years. accusing her of religious bias is almost as redundant as accusing OJ simpson of not killing his wife.
    3: the coach didnt participate in the “try-outs” of jaclyn steele because she was obligated not to by the ADL, not because she wanted her off of the squad. she could have legally lost her job if she did.

    so lets gather the facts:
    coach has been on team for 11+ years
    +1 point to coach
    coach was obligated by the ADL not to participate in the try-outs, and she was accused of religious bias BECA– USE she didnt participate. how 1-sided is that?
    +1 point to coach
    there was another jewish cheerleader on the squad, which blows religious bias completely out of the water and making the entire case of religious bias a redundant piece of crap(hey, that didnt stop the salem witch hunt, now did it?)
    +1 point to coach

    so the score is +3/0
    and at this point the ADL(which is why the ADL broke the rules and allowed her to go on for a fourth year) is in fear of being sued so they side with Jaclyn and fire coach. +1 for the jews!
    -1000 for moral integrity!
    i think that if anyone is religious bias(otherwise known as “racist”) its jaclyn steele.

  • Congratulations, Jaclyn and standing up for yourself and winning against racism!

    I hope you have a great time cheerleading and enjoy college life.

    You are a wonderful young lady who has the backbone to oppose harrassment which is commendable in one so young and especially with the type of pressure a coach can leverage. I am very pleased that the University of Georgia handled it so quickly which shows they are a great school.

    I hope your team is very successful and you enjoy all the fun cheerleading offers!

    Another cheer mom

  • The only problem is that if you read all the facts, you find that Jacklyn just isn’t a very good cheerleader.
    The only reason she got on the Football squad is a series of unrelated tie scores given to two other cheerleaders. She never scored high enough on her own. The next year, when she was demoted to mens B-ball, her highest score out of six was from Ms. Braswell. The third year when she was demoted even further, Ms. Braswell wasn’t even allowed to participate in scoring Jacklyn’s routine. Nobody thought she was any good except her papa.

  • A male cheerleader that is also homosexual? What a shock!!! Who would have imagined THAT?