Boy Scouts leaders vote to admit girls to group

The board of directors of the Boy Scouts of America voted unanimously on Wednesday to allow girls into the century-old organization.

“We strive to bring what our organization does best — developing character and leadership for young people — to as many families and youth as possible as we help shape the next generation of leaders,” Michael Surbaugh, the group’s chief scout executive, said in a statement.

The national organization said that, beginning in 2018, girls will be allowed into its Cub Scout program, which has been limited to boys in the first through fifth grades or between the ages of 7 and 10.

A separate program for older girls will be announced next year and is expected to be available in 2019. That program is expected to enable girls to earn the coveted rank of Eagle Scout.

The announcement of the policy change was immediately met with criticism from the scouting organization for girls. Girl Scouts of the USA officials said it strains the century-old bond between the two organizations.

Girl Scouts of Connecticut CEO Mary Barneby said in a statement Wednesday her organization would remain committed to providing “an all-girl, girlled and girl-friendly environment” for female scouts.

“Girl Scouts is an organization over 100 years old with time-tested methods and research-backed programs that speak to the strengths of girl-leadership development. We are the organization creating ... the female leadership pipeline,” she said. “Girl Scouts is, and will remain, the scouting program that truly benefits U.S. girls by providing a safe space for them to learn and lead.”

National Girl Scouts leaders have suggested the BSA’s move was driven partly by a need to boost revenue, and they contended there is fiscal stress in part because of past settlements paid by the BSA in sex-abuse cases.

In August, the president of the Girl Scouts, Kathy Hopinkah Hannan, accused the Boy Scouts of seeking to covertly recruit girls into their programs while disparaging the Girl Scouts’ operations. On Monday, Latino civic leader Charles Garcia, just days after being named to the Girl Scouts’ national board, wrote an opinion piece for the Huffington Post calling the BSA’s overture to girls “a terrible idea.”

“The Boy Scouts’ house is on fire,” Garcia wrote. “Instead of addressing systemic issues of continuing sexual assault, financial mismanagement and deficient programming, BSA’s senior management wants to add an accelerant to the house fire by recruiting girls.”

Instead of recruiting girls, Garcia said the BSA should focus on attracting more black, Latino and Asian boys — particularly those from low-income households.

The BSA recently increased its annual membership fee for youth members and adult volunteers from $24 to $33, but Surbaugh said the decision to expand programming for girls was not driven by financial factors. He expressed enthusiasm at the possibility that the changes could draw hundreds of thousands more girls into the BSA ranks over the coming years.

The announcement follows many months of outreach by the BSA, which distributed videos and held meetings to discuss the possibility of expanding girls’ participation beyond existing programs, such as Venturing, Exploring and Sea Scouts.

Surveys conducted by the Boy Scouts showed strong support for the change among parents not currently connected to the Scouts, including Hispanic and Asian families that the BSA has been trying to attract. Among families already in the Scouting community, the biggest worry, according to Surbaugh, was that the positive aspects of single-sex comradeship might be jeopardized.

“We’ll make sure those environments are protected,” he said. “What we’re presenting is a fairly unique hybrid model.”

During the outreach, some parents expressed concern about possible problems related to overnight camping trips. Surbaugh said there would continue to be a ban on mixed-gender overnight outings for Scouts ages 11 to 14. Cub Scout camping trips, he noted, were usually family affairs with less need for rigid polices.

The Girl Scouts, founded in 1912, and the BSA are among several major youth organizations in the U.S. experiencing sharp drops in membership in recent years. Reasons include competition from sports leagues, a perception by some families that they are old-fashioned and busy family schedules.

As of March, the Girl Scouts reported more than 1.5 million youth members and 749,000 adult members, down from just over 2 million youth members and about 800,000 adult members in 2014. The Boy Scouts say current youth participation is about 2.35 million, down from 2.6 million in 2013 and more than 4 million in peak years.