Tuskegee Beauty Contest Turns Ugly

Last April, Emilia Sykes from Akron, Ohio, was crowned Miss Tuskegee University at a pageant on the black college campus in Alabama. Two months later, the runner-up in the pageant was ruled the winner after it was discovered that a judge had unfairly penalized her for going over a three-minute time limit given to all contestants to address the judges and assembled crowd at the pageant ceremony.

Sykes has now filed a federal lawsuit in order to regain her title and the scholarship that goes with it.