NEW YORK (AP) – Girl Scouts are in a “highly damaging” recruitment war with Boy Scouts after they opened their main services to girls, causing confusion in the market and some girls inadvertently joining Boy Scouts, lawyers of the century- Old organization girl scouts complain about papers filed in federal court.
The competition, more conjecture than reality two years ago, intensified as the Boy Scouts of America organization – which insists that recruits commit to being “trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous and kind” – recruited girls unfairly recently, according to allegations in legal documents filed on behalf of the Girl Scouts of the United States of America.
The lawyers filed papers in the Manhattan federal court on Thursday to repel a Scout effort to kick off a trademark infringement lawsuit that the Scouts filed in 2018 before the trial.
Last month, Scout attorneys asked a judge to reject claims that Scouts cannot use “Scouts” and “Scouting” in their recruitment of girls without infringing trademarks.
He called the process “totally without merit”.
Messages asking for comments on the Scouts’ latest filing were sent to Scout lawyers on Saturday.
In their process, Girl Scouts said that Scout marketing for expanded girl services was “extraordinary and highly damaging to Girl Scouts” and had triggered an “explosion of confusion”.
“As a result of the Boy Scout offense, parents mistakenly enrolled their daughters in the Boy Scouts thinking they were Girl Scouts,” said the lawyers, adding that this never happened before 2018.
The Girl Scouts said they can prove that there are “rampant cases of confusion and mistaken cases of association between Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts” after the Boy Scouts directed the girls and their parents to marketing and recruiting communications in a way never seen before.
“Party programs, which have many similarities, are now directly competitive,” say the Girl Scouts.
The organization cited evidence of a small subset of documents delivered by 19 of the 250 local Boy Scout Councils, including evidence that registration fees were sometimes returned to parents who mistakenly thought they registered girls for Girl Scouts.
According to the report, the repeated cases of confusion and local interference by the Boy Scouts was a small fraction of what was happening across the country.
Each of the dozens of times the Girl Scouts complained about unfair marketing, the Boy Scouts responded by blaming individuals, churches or others for what they said was an isolated incident, lawyers said.
“According to the Boy Scouts, the blame for the market’s unrestrained confusion rests on everyone but yours,” they wrote.
Scouts and Scouts, as well as other large youth organizations, have seen declines in membership in recent years, as competition grew before the pandemic of sports leagues and busy family agendas.
In the spring of 2018, the Boy Scout program for 11-17 year olds announced that it would change its name to BSA Boy Scouts in early 2019. The main organization, the Boy Scouts of America and Boy Scouts, a program that caters to children from childhood through fifth grade, they kept their names.
The organization began admitting girls to Boy Scouts in August 2018, and BSA Boy Scouts began accepting girls in February 2019, lawyers said.
Subsequently, Scout councils and volunteers began to use Girl Scouts’ intellectual property to recruit girls, employing targeted advertising using terms such as “Boy Scouts, Boy Scouts, Scouts, Boy Scouts and Boy Scouts BSA,” wrote the lawyers.
“Scouts knew very well in 2017, as well as in the 1930s and 1970s, that SCOUT, SCOUTS and SCOUTING, when used in connection with women’s services, could only create associations with Girl Scouts, unless other distinct content referencing the Scouts from America appeared in advertising and promotional materials, ”they said. “But it happened anyway, and the only plausible inference is that his motive was to get rid of the Girl Scouts’ impeccable reputation and boost their position in a ‘new market – Girls in Scouting’.”
Lawyers said that the Scout Councils in Illinois recognized the misuse of the Girl Scout slogan in Girl Scout recruitment materials and Girl Scout pictures to promote a “Boy Scout Registration Night!”
They said a western Massachusetts scout council posted a recruitment pamphlet on Facebook, including a photograph of a girl in her Brownie Girl Scout uniform.
Meanwhile, Ohio Boy Scouts used the Girl Scouts’ trademark to try to get a local newspaper to write an article, suggesting a storyline entitled “Boy Scouts and Boy Scouts looking for members,” although recruitment involved only Boy Scouts, lawyers said.
In Seattle, a Boy Scout Council used the Girl Scout trademark in social media recruitment materials, lawyers said.
They said the confusion skyrocketed among children, parents, schools and religious organizations and cited examples in other states, including Florida, Minnesota, Arkansas, Michigan, North Carolina and Hawaii.