Miss Michigan World America loses beauty crown for noting hijab makes women 'oppressed under Islam'

After declining to try on a hijab, Kathy Zhu said:

“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?”

How “Islamophobic,” right? But what about Aqsa Parvez? Her Muslim father choked her to death with her hijab after she refused to wear it. Or for Aqsa and Amina Muse Ali, a Christian woman in Somalia whom Muslims murdered because she wasn’t wearing a hijab? They showed no concern for the 40 women who were murdered in Iraq in 2007 for not wearing the hijab; or for Alya Al-Safar, whose Muslim cousin threatened to kill her and harm her family because she stopped wearing the hijab in Britain; or for Amira Osman Hamid, who faced whipping in Sudan for refusing to wear the hijab; or for the Egyptian girl, also named Amira, who committed suicide after being brutalized by her family for refusing to wear the hijab; or for the Muslim and non-Muslim teachers at the Islamic College of South Australia who were told they had to wear the hijab or be fired; or for the women in Chechnya whom police shot with paintballs because they weren’t wearing hijab; or for the women in Chechnya who were threatened by men with automatic rifles for not wearing hijab; or for the elementary school teachers in Tunisia who were threatened with death for not wearing hijab; or for the Syrian schoolgirls who were forbidden to go to school unless they wore hijab; or for the women in Gaza whom Hamas has forced to wear hijab; or for the women in Iran who protested against the regime, even before the recent uprising, by daring to take off their hijabs; or for the women in London whom Muslim thugs threatened to murder if they didn’t wear hijab; or for the anonymous young Muslim woman who doffed her hijab outside her home and started living a double life in fear of her parents; or for the fifteen girls in Saudi Arabia who were killed when the religious police wouldn’t let them leave their burning school building because they had taken off their hijabs in their all-female environment; or for the girl in Italy whose mother shaved her head for not wearing hijab; or for all the other women and girls who have been killed or threatened, or who live in fear for daring not to wear the hijab.

Courageous women in the Islamic Republic of Iran are taking off their hijabs as a sign of resistance to the oppressive Sharia regime under which they live, and at least 29 women have been arrested for doing so. Who is standing in solidarity with them?

After she lost her crown, Zhu wrote:

“This is more than just some beauty pageant, this is about the prejudice views against people with ‘different opinions.’”

Indeed. The Left is making an all-out effort to delegitimize entirely all points of view except its own. This is just one episode in that endeavor.

“Michigan College Republican loses beauty crown over ‘insensitive’ tweets,” by Jonathan Oosting, Detroit News, July 19, 2019:

A College Republican leader at the University of Michigan is blasting Miss World America beauty pageant officials for stripping her state title and barring her from a national competition because of provocative social media posts that spurred accusations of racism, Islamophobia and insensitivity.

Kathy Zhu, a 20-year-old senior at the University of Michigan, says she was barred from a beauty pageant over “insensitive” tweets.

Kathy Zhu, the 20-year-old vice president of UM College Republicans, said organizers took her 2017 and 2018 tweets about Muslim hijabs and African-American murder rates out of context and did not give her a chance to explain her rationale.

The controversy exploded Thursday on conservative media sites after Zhu posted emails and text messages from a pageant official who told her she could no longer participate because of “offensive, insensitive and inappropriate” social media posts….

The beauty pageant this week announced Zhu as Miss Michigan World America 2019 but revoked the title a day later. Organizers appear to have deleted the original announcement from a regional Facebook page and reposted a list of other winners from Michigan and Indiana.

A senior majoring in political science, Zhu expects to graduate next year. She describes herself as a “right-leading moderate” and supports Republican President Donald Trump.

“This is more than just some beauty pageant, this is about the prejudice views against people with ‘different opinions,’” she wrote Friday morning on Twitter.

Zhu transferred to UM in December from the University of Central Florida, where she drew national attention in 2018 for criticizing a Muslim Student Association event that invited students to try on a hijab, a head covering worn in public by some Muslim women.

“So you’re telling me that it’s now just a fashion accessory and not a religious thing?” Zhu had tweeted. “Or are you just trying to get women used to being oppressed under Islam?”

Her comments prompted a Twitter fight and at least one call for expulsion, but officials ultimately concluded that none of the involved students’ actions violated the university’s rules of conduct….

In an email exchange that Zhu published on Twitter, Miss World America state director Laurie DeJack told her that her social media accounts contain “offensive, insensitive and inappropriate content” in violation of pageant rules and conditions.

Specifically, DeJack pointed to a requirement that contestants be “of good character” with backgrounds “not likely to bring disrepute” to Miss World America or anyone associated with the organization.

“Therefore, and effective immediately, MWA does not recognize you as a participant of any sort in any capacity as it relates to any and all events of MWA,” DeJack continued in an email also sent to national pageant officials.

“I’m sure you will love to find a ‘woman’ who is cookie cutter perfect and says brainless comments like, ‘I love world peace,” Zhu wrote in response.

Zhu said she tweeted about the hijab incident after a Muslim woman “forcibly” tried to put one on her head at the University of Central Florida.

At the time, the Muslim Student Association said no one was forced or pressured to approach their booth on campus.

“The purpose of this booth was to spread awareness of the hijab and those who choose to wear it,” the group said. “The hijab, or headscarf, is worn by many Muslim women to exemplify modesty. It is a decision made of their own accord.”…

College Republicans at the University of Michigan stood by Zhu, who is vice president of the organization.

“We fully stand behind Kathy in decrying the outrageous behavior of Miss World America,” the student group said in a statement.

“Although they are within their rights to do this as a private organization, we believe that this decision shows incredible bias against unextraordinary right wing opinion, which we expect will come back to hurt the organization.”…

“I just think that they got a one-sided story,” Zhu said of pageant organizers, suggesting a former antagonist in Florida had alerted them to the social media posts “that made it seem as if I was a bad person” without any context.

“The whole point of them not wanting me to represent them is because they didn’t want bad publicity, but this gave them way more bad publicity because they removed someone that really didn’t do anything wrong,” she said.