A legal battle between the Boy Scouts of America and the Girl Scouts has intensified amid newfound competition to recruit girls into each organization.
The Girl Scouts have said the BSA is participating in a “highly damaging” recruitment war after the organization, which is dropping “Boys” and rebranding its recruitment program as “Scouts BSA,” opened recruitment to girls as well as boys, according to the BBC.
The BSA responded in kind, accusing the Girl Scouts of inciting a “ground war.”
In 2017, the BSA’s board of directors voted unanimously to open the club’s core services to all children, with the first girls participating the next year.
The Girl Scouts filed a lawsuit shortly after the decision was made, alleging trademark infringement and claiming the name rebranding decision was “uniquely damaging” to them, leading parents accidentally to sign up their children for the BSA instead of the Girl Scouts.
“As a result of Boy Scouts’ infringement … [there have been] rampant instances of confusion and mistaken instances of association between Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts,” a new court paper filed Christmas Eve read, according to WNEM. “The parties’ programs, which have many similarities, are now directly competitive.”
The BSA’s lawyers have asked a judge to dismiss the suit.
“To imply that confusion is a prevailing reason for their choice is not only inaccurate – with no legally admissible instance of this offered to date in the case – but it is also dismissive of the decisions of more than 120,000 girls and young women who have joined Cub Scouts or Scouts BSA since the programs became available to them,” the BSA said in a statement addressing the new court filing, adding that the decision to admit girls was the result of “years of request from families” that wanted all of their children to participate in the organization’s programs.
Girl Scouts has alleged the decision to welcome girls into the BSA was an effort to shore up “well-documented” falling membership rates.
BSA’s membership rates have fallen by roughly one-third since 2000, according to the BBC, with currently 2.3 million members, excluding adult volunteers. The Girl Scouts has roughly 1.7 million members.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts for further comment.
