OAN’s James Meyers
1:47 PM – Tuesday, May 7, 2024
The Boy Scouts of America will officially be changing its name for the first time in its 114-year history. The organization will soon be referred to as Scouting America.
It’s a massive change as the company looks to put a bankruptcy filing behind them, following a large amount of sexual abuse claims. The organization will also seek to focus on inclusion.
The organization has had a huge overhaul after decades of controversy, from allowing gay youth to welcoming girls into the organization.
With the goal of increasing membership, the Texas-based organization announced the name change on Tuesday during its annual meeting in Florida.
“In the next 100 years we want any youth in America to feel very, very welcome to come into our programs,” Roger Krone, who took over last fall as president and chief executive officer, said in an interview before the announcement.
In 2013, the organization began allowing gay youth and ended the ban on gay adult leaders in 2015.
Additionally, in 2017, it made the historic announcement that girls would be accepted as Cub Scouts as of 2018 and into the flagship Boy Scout program, renamed Scouts BSA, in 2019.
In 2021, there were almost 1,000 young women in the inaugural class of Eagle Scouts, including Selby Chipman. The all-girls troop she was a founding member of in her hometown of Oak Ridge, North Carolina, has grown from five girls to almost 50. She thinks the name change will encourage even more girls to realize they can join.
“Girls were like: ‘You can join Boy Scouts of America?’” said Chipman, now a 20-year-old college student and assistant scoutmaster of her troop.
Meanwhile, like other organizations, the scouts lost members during the pandemic, when participation was difficult.
The move by the Boy Scouts to allow girls caused the Girl Scouts of the USA to file a lawsuit, claiming it created marketplace confusion and damaged their recruitment efforts.
However, they reached a settlement after a judge rejected those claims, ruling that both groups are allowed to use words like “scouts” and “scouting.”
Krone says the organization offers something for everyone today, from great adventures to merit badges for robotics and digital technology, Krone said: “About anything kids want to do today, they can do in a structured way within the scouting program.”
The name change won’t officially take place until February 8th, 2025, the organization’s 115th birthday.
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