BSA announces it is now allowing girls

[Joel]

Had girls been in the scouting program I might have been more interested going, I never been into hanging out with a bunch dudes.

[Joel]

There is Actually a Federal Law Aimed at Keeping Boy Scouts All Boys

The Boy Scouts of America (“BSA”) will begin admitting girl scouts. The rule change is the result of a unanimous decision issued by the BSA’s board of directors. A press release explains the group’s motivation and clarifies the new policy:

Today, the Boy Scouts of America Board of Directors unanimously approved to welcome girls into its iconic Cub Scout program and to deliver a Scouting program for older girls that will enable them to advance and earn the highest rank of Eagle Scout. The historic decision comes after years of receiving requests from families and girls, the organization evaluated the results of numerous research efforts, gaining input from current members and leaders, as well as parents and girls who’ve never been involved in Scouting – to understand how to offer families an important additional choice in meeting the character development needs of all their children.

Many are shocked and outraged by the decision, but the move shouldn’t really come as a surprise. The BSA has faced numerous legal and political battles throughout the years over their longstanding ban on female scouts. Most interestingly, a federal law actually protects the Boy Scouts and explicitly permits them to continue operating all boys, which is why they have been able to withstand many of these challenges. However, the law, by no means, prevents the Boy Scouts from including women.

So, let’s take a look at the overall legal landscape and survey a bit of recent history.

The Law Itself

Under Title IX, the law barring sexual discrimination in educational institutions, certain organizations have managed to carve out exemptions which allow them to legally operate as single-sex organizations. The BSA is one of those organizations–along with the YMCA, YWCA, Girl Scouts and Camp Fire Girls. The law reads, in relevant part:

Title IX does not apply to the membership practices of the Young Men’s Christian Association, Young Women’s Christian Association, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, and Camp Fire Girls. 20 U.S.C. § 1681(a)(6)(B); 34 C.F.R. § 106.14(b). All other programs and activities these organizations are governed by Title IX if they receive any Federal financial assistance.

According to legal scholar Noah Feldman, those exemptions aren’t based on any sort of legal principle, but rather, are simply a legal grant to discriminate based upon a hybrid of tradition and effective lobbying.

“Structurally, the exemption resembles the one that Congress gave Major League Baseball from antitrust laws: It doesn’t really have a principled basis, but reflects some combination of tradition and lobbying power,” Feldman said.

Unicorns, Activate!

There were (very loud) whispers of a legal challenge in 2015. Profiled in the New York Times, a group of five girls from Northern California demanded they be allowed to join the organization. They were denied membership but started their own unofficial offshoot known as the Unicorns. The Unicorns participated in a camporee event where they placed second–beating out dozens of officially-recognized Boy Scout troops. One of the Unicorns, Ella Jacobs, put it bluntly, “We can do the same things boys can — proven from camporee. There’s no really ‘girl things’ or ‘boy things.’”

But it’s unclear whether that rumored “legal challenge” actually went anywhere. There’s no record of the Unicorns ever actually filing a lawsuit. The article notes that the girls appeared before the BSA board and one-by-one dropped off their applications, but it seems like they never made it to a courthouse. Their bid to have the Unicorns become affiliated with the BSA was turned down.

Yeaw v. Boy Scouts of America

At least one lawsuit actually was filed against the BSA over their denial of membership to girls. In 1995, on behalf of Katrina Yeaw, that lawsuit accused the BSA of prohibited gender discrimination for rejecting her membership application. The BSA fought the lawsuit and while on appeal before the California Supreme Court, other decisions involving the BSA determined that the organization had the right to determine its own membership criteria–effectively killed Yeaw’s chances. She withdrew her appeal a few months later, but said:

I was born a girl, and no matter what else I do with my life, that’s what it all comes down to–being a girl. Being born a boy or a girl is not something you can change, but maybe we can still change the laws that make it legal to discriminate against girls.

The Feminist Angle

Earlier this year, the National Organization for Women (“NOW”) issued a statement urging the BSA to allow girls to join. NOW President Terry O’Neill said, at the time:

Women can now hold all combat roles in the military, and women have broken many glass ceilings at the top levels of government, business, academia and entertainment. It’s long past due that girls have equal opportunities in Scouting.

NOW was apparently motivated to issue this statement after learning of another challenge to the BSA’s membership rules–in this instance, by the story of a 15-year-old New York City girl who emulates her brother, an Eagle Scout. The local troop has apparently been nothing but accommodating and supportive, but the larger BSA organization dismissed the criticism at the time.

But now, just a few months later, the BSA’s board is changing its tune. After years of criticism and legal wrangling, it appears tradition has given way to a full-throated embrace of equality.

[gardener4life]

It was very kind of the BSA to delay this announcement until after our Stake "Scouting for Funding" drive.

Just curious do all stakes do the scouting for funding drive at the same time? Our stake just did the scouting for funding drive last week too. That's nice of them to do it right after taking people's money.

[gkearney]

It was very kind of the BSA to delay this announcement until after our Stake "Scouting for Funding" drive.

Just curious do all stakes do the scouting for funding drive at the same time? Our stake just did the scouting for funding drive last week too. That's nice of them to do it right after taking people's money.

No the councils decide when to do it. Mine does theirs in the spring. I was in another that did it in February. It’s a council wide thing not just LDS stakes.

[Vision]

It will now be 4 deep leadership, 2 men leaders to keep each others hands off the boys, 2 women leaders to keep the mens hands off the girls.

I laughed because I think you were trying to be funny. But, sadly too many really think this. For 5 days a week I am competent, trusted professional. On sundays I am treated like a serial child molestar. I try not to think about it, but when I do it bugs me.

Recently I spend sundays in primary, but I can't have a one on one talk with the primary president lest I do something unseemly. When the sunbeam runs out of sharing time yelling "I gotta pee" I can't follow him to make sure he makes it. If my teaching partner doesn't show up I get to wait in the hall until they find me a substitute partner, or go to priesthood while one woman teaches my class.

Top it off with multiple talks about men and pornography and sometimes I wonder.....

Let me just say I understand why there are fewer active men then women and I worry the message the boys might get is male=evil animal.

With sarcasm I intended to make it funny but also to point out how ridiculous scouting is becoming.

[Joel]

Commentary: Mormons and the Boy Scouts, once joined at the hip, are now heading down different trails

It is a common stereotype, though one not far from the truth, that the average Mormon boy is an Eagle Scout.

There are certainly a lot of them. Recent statistics suggest that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints makes up about 20 percent of the Boy Scouts of America enrollment. This has been a long and interdependent relationship: The BSA provided a wholesome structure for Mormon boys, with typically half the LDS Church’s weekly activities nights dedicated to some Scouting initiative, and the Utah-based faith provided a continuous stream of boys (and money) for the national institution. It seemed a match made in heaven.
But the two groups seem destined for divorce.

The BSA in recent years has been more willing than the LDS Church to embrace inclusive and progressive values: The organization announced in recent years a willingness to admit gay and transgender Scouts and Scout leaders. The Mormon faith has opposed, to some degree, these types of advances. In 2015, LDS leaders expressed disappointment about these shifts and warned they were “re-evaluating” their historic relationship with the organization.

Church administrators backed up their threat earlier this year when they declared their intent to phase out BSA programs for young men. While at first the change involved only the Varsity and Venturing programs, it was clear that it was merely the first step toward a full separation between the institutions. Two groups that had long been seen as congruous in activities and values were now appearing to diverge.

The BSA’s announcement Oct. 11 that it would begin integrating girls into its various programs further exacerbated this growing rift. This was a long-predicted move, rumors of which may have prompted the LDS Church’s decision to separate over the past few years.
Mormonism prides itself on maintaining distinct gendered programs for its youths, which reflects a wider commitment to separate spheres. (The faith still revolves around an all-male priesthood leadership structure.) Separation from the BSA will allow the church to continue distinct programs for boys and girls, each designed to train the next generations in their designated gender roles.

So, what does the divorce between these two previously intertwined organizations mean for their divergent trajectories?

The origins of the LDS-BSA connection were rooted in convenience and overlapping values. Scouting initiatives began as part of a broader cultural movement to help return the nation’s youths to principles of rugged individualism and masculinity; in response to what some saw as an over-feminized society, boys needed to learn how to become men.

Simultaneously, Mormons, in the wake of denouncing polygamy and embracing America’s political system after decades of conflict, were eager to prove their patriotism; the energetic acceptance of the BSA was one way to prove their commitment to American ideals. Producing hundreds of thousands of Eagle Scouts was an effective way to assimilate into America’s cultural institutions.

But nearly a century later, both groups have different priorities that made this association exceptionally frail. Pressured to be more inclusive, especially in the wake of several scandals, the BSA was expected to better reflect America’s evolving values if it desired to remain a prominent institution in the 21st century. The BSA’s belated, and often begrudging, acceptance of LGBTQ identities made it appear increasingly antiquated. To stay relevant, the Scouting organization had to leave behind traditional structures.

The LDS Church, on the other hand, has become confident enough in its status within American culture that it no longer needed the BSA’s validation. Further, the church’s consistent attempts to become a global faith, with more members outside the United States than within it, made devotion to one nation’s Scouting organization even more quixotic. Dropping BSA programs will allow the faith’s leadership, always devoted to standardizing practices across continents and languages, to create a program for young men that can be replicated outside America.

It is indeed striking to see two organizations that have previously been interdependent go their separate ways. But given the divergent paths each side has taken in recent decades, this split appears a logical development in their respective trajectories. The BSA now seeks to be a little more American; the LDS Church, a little less.

[Joel]