inde navarrette fact-check: Viral claim that this Texas cheerleader was fired for kneeling during the national anthem is false
A viral post circulating on Facebook and X this week claims that Texas high school cheerleader Inde Navarrette was expelled from her squad and banned from all school extracurricular activities after kneeling during the national anthem at a September football game. Fact-checkers have verified that this is 100% fake. No school district or coach in Texas has any record of such an incident, and the image used in the posts is a decade-old stock photo of a different athlete. The rumor appears to be a recycled hoax designed to stoke political division. Inde Navarrette is a name pulled from a 2022 minor controversy involving a different high school athlete in California, not Texas. The real story: no such firing or ban ever occurred.