On Monday, 19 former Miss America contest winners called for the nonprofit organization’s whole board to step down in the wake of the bullying allegations against chairwoman Gretchen Carlson.

Current Miss America Cara Mund recently wrote a five-page letter in which she accused Carlson — a former Fox News anchor who was also named Miss America in 1989 — of bullying and silencing her.

Since then, several other former pageant winners like Caress Cameron-Jackson (2010) and Suzette Charles (1984) have voiced support for Mund.

Watch our full interview with Miss America 2018 Cara Mund

“I feel as though all of the leadership is complicit in this, and in order for us to move forward and to actually heal, we need to do the right thing right now, so that we can move forward and focus on who’s gonna be crowned Miss America on September 9,” Cameron-Jackson stated on ABC’s Good Morning America on Monday.

Mund, 24, alleged Carlson and the rest of the organization’s board pressured her to give certain talking points like telling reporters that Carlson graduated from Stanford University. Mund also said she was urged to claim that Carlson — who filed and settled a $20 million sexual harassment lawsuit against late Fox News chairman Roger Ailes in July 2016 — launched the “Me Too” movement (activist Tarana Burke actually started it).

Carlson denied Mund’s accusations in a statement she shared on Twitter on Sunday.

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“Cara, let me be clear: We, as an organization, are very proud of you and all you have accomplished. You are smart, caring and ambitious. … You embody the mission of Miss America,” Carlson wrote in the statement.

Carlson also noted in her statement that Miss America had lost at least $75,000 in scholarship money due to Mund’s accusations.

Here are how the many former Miss Americas and others reacted to Carlson’s response to Mund’s allegations.

 

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