Miss Montana 2013 says she was bullied out of MSUM sorority

MOORHEAD – Miss Montana 2013 claims she was bullied out of her former sorority at Minnesota State University Moorhead.

An investigation is underway by the school to determine if Tihista’s allegations are valid.

MSUM spokesman David Wahlberg said the investigation just started because Tihista reported them just before fall classes started last month.

The body investigating the harassment allegations includes MSUM students, Wahlberg said. It can recommend sanctions on individuals and organizations.

Tihista claims she was booted out of the sorority after standing up for her “little,” a freshman girl in the sorority she mentored.

“She was really picked on,” Tihista said.

The bullying started after Tihista’s little sent out a tweet one of the other girls didn’t like. After that tweet, the girl was disciplined but Tihista said she faced harassment. The little and the girls allegedly bullying her lived in the sorority house on 10th Street South.

The girl reported the bullying to the chapter’s standards chairwoman. She is supposed to mediate conflicts in the chapter, Tihista said.

“Instead of mediating the situation, the chairwoman at the time would text the girls that were bullying her, and then it just escalated,” Tihista said.

“Those girls would slam doors in her face or stop talking whenever she entered the room,” Tihista said. “They made her feel unwelcome in her own house.”

When Tihista, who was away from school at the time, tried to stick up for her little, she became a target of her sorority sisters, she said.

The alleged bullying started in May while Tihista, the 2013 Miss Montana, was taking a break from school and the sorority to take part in the Miss America pageant.

Tihista said she contacted the chapter’s advisor, their standards person and the regional coordinator. The regional coordinator acts as a liaison to the international Gamma Phi Beta organization.

In an email provided by Tihista, Sashaun Wood, the regional coordinator, said she reviewed the evidence provided by Tihista about the bullying. Wood said the issue needed to be resolved at the local chapter level.

Wood also told Tihista not to seek out additional media attention.

Tihista said after sending her concerns to the appropriate parties she was inundated with messages from girls in the sorority that weren’t what she expected.

She said she was told her sorority sisters were going to vote her out of the chapter. She said some of the members also started false rumors about her. A Twitter hashtag was even created to support voting Tihista out of the chapter.

One of the rumors was that Tihista said: “I had more experience in my pinky finger than all of them combined, but the world needed dishwashers, too.”

Tihista denied this rumor and said it was completely false and made up to convince other girls to vote her out of the sorority.

“The president of this current year, our chapter advisor, and apparently 90 percent of my sisterhood was determined to discontinue my membership,” Tihista wrote in her blog Aug. 6.

After Tihista was about to be kicked out of the sorority, she ignored the regional coordinator’s advice and brought her story to the media.

She decided to take an alumni status instead of returning to the chapter and likely be kicked out.

WDAY interviewed Tihista in late August.

“I feared retaliation after WDAY interviewed me,” she said.

So far, she hasn’t been in contact with any of her former sorority sisters that she claimed bullied her.

She said the bullying was not an anomaly and she observed it before she was bullied but didn’t speak out.

“When I was there, I was just as guilty, I was a bystander for letting girls go through this,” she said. “I’m ashamed it took me being on the receiving end to change my mind.”

Tihista said the chapter’s bullying is overlooked by the chapter and international organization.

“That chapter needs to be shut down,” she said.

Tihista joined the sorority in 2011 after transferring from the University of Montana in Missoula.

A reporter knocked on door of the Gamma Phi Beta house but was told by a member that all questions from the media needed to be sent to the international organization.

Messages and calls to the international organization were not returned. An email sent to the chapter advisor also was not returned.