Miss America gives N.J. back its pageant license - with conditions

Updated 3:49 PM

Nia Imani Franklin won the Miss America crown in September.

By Kelly Heyboer | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Three weeks after yanking the license of its New Jersey division amid a feud over changes to the pageant, the national Miss America organization announced Wednesday it will reinstate the state’s license for one year.

But there will be big changes to the New Jersey organization.

The Miss New Jersey Education Foundation, which oversees the state pageant, will get a new executive director and must recruit new board members and sponsors to draw a “broader participation in the program,” according to the announcement posted on the group’s Facebook page.

“The new operations proposal will give New Jersey an even stronger program for the young women who see the Miss America system as a path to education and service,” said David Holtzman, the new executive director of the New Jersey organization. “As we begin a new era of Miss New Jersey, we want to thank the many volunteers who worked so hard to give us a strong foundation to build upon.”

New Jersey has hosted the Miss America pageant in Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City for most of the organization’s history.

The local organizations in New Jersey, New York and Florida had their Miss America licenses terminated earlier this month by the national organization, meaning they could no longer run local pageants associated with the national contest. However, the states were allowed to appeal the decision and try to reach a new agreement.

There have been several similar shakeups in other states as the national pageant organizers have replaced local leaders and pushed out critics of the changes to the national contest.

Former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson, Miss America 1989, is head of the Miss America board and Regina Hopper is the CEO of the Miss America Organization. Both women took over in 2017 after a scandal over the previous CEO’s offensive emails, which included sexist statements and insults about former Miss America winners.

In their effort to create a “Miss America 2.0,” the new leaders said they would drop the pageant’s swimsuit competition and make other changes to make the beauty contest more modern. That caused a divide within the organization.

Sally Johnston, the executive director of the Miss New Jersey Education Foundation, was among those who signed a letter calling for the resignation of Carlson, Hopper and the Miss America board.

“'Miss America 2.0′ is simply a title for the same old tactics of obfuscation and fear-based governance,” it was stated in the letter.

Holtzman, a board member for the New Jersey organization, will take over for Johnston as executive director, according to the announcement of the new deal. But Johnston will be recognized as President Emeritus of the state organization.

The Miss America Organization board members who oversaw the appeal process said they were pleased with New Jersey’s participation in the appeal process and the review that lead to the reinstatement of their license.

“We feel confident the plans laid out by Mr. Holtzman’s team will work to make New Jersey an even stronger participant in the Miss America Organization system,” the statement said.

The announcement made no mention if the Miss America pageant will be held in Atlantic City in future years. Last week, several news organizations reported the Miss America Organization was shopping around in search of cities around the country interested in hosting future pageants.

Miss America’s contract with the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority in New Jersey has expired. The state authority contributed $12 million over three years in a deal that allowed Atlantic City to host the pageant. But the authority has not made a deal for the 2020 and 2021 pageants, the reports said.

Miss America started in Atlantic City nearly a century ago. The nationally-televised pageant moved to Las Vegas in 2006, but came back to Atlantic City in 2013.