The Girl Scouts organization accused the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) of “undermining” recruitment tactics after opening its basic services to girls.
On Thursday, documents were filed in federal court seeking to challenge a lawsuit for BSA to reject a Scout trademark infringement case in 2018.
The Girl Scouts of the United States of America say the BSA recruited girls unjustly, according to legal records, the Associated Press reported.
Girl Scouts say BSA’s use of the terms “Boy Scouts” and “Scouting” infringes the organization’s trademarks.
However, lawyers for the Boy Scouts of America have already considered the allegations “totally without merit”.
According to documents filed in Manhattan federal court on Thursday, the Girl Scouts claimed that BSA’s marketing of its services to girls was “extraordinary and highly damaging to Girl Scouts”, adding that it generated 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.
In the spring of 2018, the 11-17 year old boys program announced that it would change its name to Scouts BSA to accommodate girls. The Boy Scouts of America, the main organization, kept their name, including the names of their younger companions, called Scouts, according to the AP.
BSA Boy Scouts began accepting girls in 2019.
The Girl Scouts claimed they could prove “rampant cases of confusion and misleading instances of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts” after a series of marketing content that the BSA launched targeting girls and parents with recruitment communications they had not used before, according to the news source.
The Girl Scouts sent documents from 19 of the 250 local Boy Scout Councils that reportedly showed cases where Boy Scouts had to return registration fees to parents who mistook the organization for Girl Scouts.
The organization claims that the BSA blamed everyone else except itself, according to the news agency.
Lawyers cited several examples from different chapters in states across the country. One report claimed that a Seattle Scout council used the Scouts’ trademark on social media recruitment materials.
The Hill contacted the BSA for comment.