Miss Michigan Kathy Zhu has been stripped of her title because of her “offensive,” conservative-leaning social media posts, Yahoo News reports.
Zhu, a student at the University of Michigan as well as a conservative blogger and online personality, was crowned Miss Michigan on July 14 and set to compete in the next stage of the competition, Miss World. However, the day after Zhu was awarded her crown, the Miss World Pageant disqualified her from further competition and stripped her of the crown. The agency cited her social media posts, which they called “offensive, insensitive, and inappropriate.”
In a tweet , Zhu shared a copy of the letter in which she was informed that she’d been stripped of her crown. The letter states that her social media history contained posts that they deemed offensive, but didn’t give specifics. However, USA Today writer Andrea Perez Balderrama tracked down some of Zhu’s tweets, many of which appear to have since been deleted, and provided a couple of examples.
In one tweet from 2018, as The Orlando Sentinel reported at the time, the Muslim Student Association at the University of Central Florida, where Zhu was a student, was recognizing World Hijab Day by hosting a booth where people were allowed to try on a hijab. Zhu wasn’t having it.
“There is a ‘try a hijab on’ booth at my college campus. So you’re telling me that it’s now just a fashion accessory and not a religious thing? Or are you just trying to get women used to being oppressed under Islam?”
https://twitter.com/PoliticalKathy/status/1152931653947396096
In another tweet, she wrote that “the majority of black deaths are caused by other blacks.”
“Fix problems within your own community before blaming others,” she wrote.
In her tweet in which she shared the letter informing her of her removal, she also shared a photo of her response. In it, she noted that some women in the Middle East have been stoned to death for refusing to wear the hijab and wondered if the Muslim Student Association at the University of Central Florida was interested in having that punishment brought to the U.S. She also stated that perhaps the Miss World Pageant is more interested in “cookie cutter perfect” women who say things like “I want world peace.”
She also shared screenshots of a text message conversation she had with a representative from the Miss World Pageant, wherein the representative provided Zhu with examples of Twitter posts, cited above in this article, that led to her dismissal.
The Miss World Pageant has not responded to requests for comment, as of this writing.
