The CEO of the Miss America Organization has been suspended amid a scandal involving controversial emails, and former pageant winners from Illinois are calling for him to step down.
Sam Haskell was suspended Friday by the organization after a Huffington Post report showed that he had emailed inappropriate remarks about former Miss America winners.
2003 winner, and current Republican Attorney General candidate, Erika Harold spoke out against Haskell, and urged the organization to clean up its act.
“I want the public to know those emails are absolutely unacceptable, but they are not a reflection of the larger organization,” Harold said. “Anyone who participated in those emails or sat by while they were being sent should resign immediately.”
Harold says that she wasn't aware of the emails being sent, and says that she is shocked by the revelations.
"There was a different CEO when I was Miss America, and I had no sense of anything like that occurring," she said. "That's why the release of these emails is so shocking."
Those emails targeted several winners of the pageant, including Evanston native Kate Shindle, who won the pageant in 1998.
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One email, entitled “It Should Have Been Kate Shindle,” referred to the death of a former pageant winner. Haskell replied to the email, saying “even in my sadness you make me laugh.”
“Every single one of the people who participated in that type of conversation needs to go,” Shindle said. “They don’t get it. They don’t get what Miss America is or what it can be.”
Haskell also criticized 2013 winner Mallory Hagan in an email, calling her “huge and gross.”
“When I first read the emails in the article I wasn’t shocked, but I was validated,” Hagan said. “I mean for the longest time I’ve tried to explain to people around me that this is happening or these things are being said and to have the ability to then look on paper and say, ‘See? I told you.’”
This week, 49 former winners of the pageant, including all four living winners from Illinois, signed a letter calling for Haskell to resign as CEO of the organization.
“We believe in empowering and supporting young women as they work to achieve their professional and academic goals,” the letter says. “We also ask for those who revere the Miss America legacy to join us in preserving the integrity of the Miss America Organization and in supporting all women, rather than tearing them down.”
