Source: Sorority Expelled Miss America for Hazing

Kira Kazantsev says she was wrongly accused
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 23, 2014 3:20 AM CDT
Source: Sorority Expelled Miss America for Hazing
Miss New York Kira Kazantsev walks the runway after being crowned as Miss America 2015 on Sept. 14, 2014, in Atlantic City.   (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Kira Kazantsev was kicked out of the Alpha Phi sorority at Hofstra University last year, and it wasn't for banging plastic cups around, a source tells Jezebel. According to the source, the future Miss America and a friend were expelled from the sorority for hazing pledges, who were "called names, berated for their perceived physical flaws and imperfections, and made to perform physical tasks to the point of bruising and exhaustion." Kazantsev, the president of the sorority's recruitment committee at the time, was banned from all sorority-related activities after an investigation, the source says, but sneaked into the end-of-year formal anyway.

Pageant officials, however, say Kazantsev has been "fully transparent with the Miss America Organization about her termination from the Alpha Phi sorority" and the "incident has been exploited" to distract from her impressive achievements at the Long Island university, reports the Washington Post. On her website, the beauty queen says she never bullied anybody and the worst hazing she witnessed involved "reciting information, a few sleepless nights, and crafting." She says she was expelled from the sorority after an email in which she joked about hazing was forwarded to the national organization—and says the "nameless source that is saying these things is doing exactly what it is that I was wrongfully accused of." (Click for more about Kazantsev's controversial talent performance.)

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