Girl scouts and Boy Scouts are waging a recruitment battle, with Girl Scouts accusing Boy Scouts of stealing potential members.
The women’s organization says the Scouts of America, or BSA, has unjustly recruited girls into its ranks, essentially encroaching on its membership base, amid the dwindling number of enrollments in both groups, according to a legal document.
Scouts have been allowing girls to participate in their programs since 2018, “after years of family requests” for boys and girls to venture out and train together and for girls to have the opportunity to become Boy Scouts – the highest honor bestowed by the organization .
But the Girl Scouts say the new BSA recruitment process is “highly damaging” to their own brand and that the “breach” has created a wave of confusion among parents who mistakenly enrolled their daughters in the wrong organization.
Dishonor of the Boy Scouts?
In 2018, Girl Scouts sued BSA for trademark infringement, claiming that the boys’ organization used Girl Scout images and slogans – including the terms and phrases “Scout”, “Scouting” and “Watch Me” in their advertising.
“As a result of the Scout rape, parents mistakenly enrolled their daughters in the Boy Scouts thinking they were Girl Scouts,” said the Girl Scout lawyers, adding that this had not been an issue before 2018, when the change was made for the first time.
Last month, Boy Scouts classified the process as “totally without merit” and asked a judge to dismiss it.
On Christmas Eve, Girl Scouts filed documents in federal court to challenge the measure, saying the BSA intended to create confusion about organizations among recruits.
“Scouts have known for decades that the use of terms like scouts or scouting would be confusing unless they clearly identify the sponsor of the services offered under these brands, but went ahead and used those terms anyway”, reads the file Thursday. “Unrestrained confusion and damage to the Girl Scout brand was the expected and intended result.”
The BSA issued a statement in response, telling CBS News that young people join the organization for a variety of reasons and usually do not choose to join in error.
“Insinuating that confusion is a prevalent reason for your choice is not only inaccurate – with no legally permissible example of it offered so far – but it also ignores the decisions of more than 120,000 girls and young women who have joined Cub Scouts or BSA Scouts since the programs became available to them, “said the BSA.