I was never a Boy Scout growing up, although I have done extensive camping and outdoor activities. But my son went through the program and earned how Eagle Scout rank about five years ago. I therefore spent about 9 years with his scout troop, going on camp-outs, helping to teach merit badges, and even spending a week a year at summer camp with his troop. During that time, I came to respect the program. So much so that I served in his former troop for another generation of scouts before the troop lost its membership and dissolved.
Sadly, the Boy Scouts seem to have lost their way. They have allowed the groups that hated them back in the 1980s and 1990s into their leadership and advisory ranks. This has fundamentally changed who they are. At best, this will result in a meaningless program that limps along with a modest membership. At worst, it will result in steady decline and eventually failure of the 100+ year-old organization. This is an essay on the mistakes I see being made and how to correct course and save the program.
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DEI is killing the Boy Scouts
The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion program the the Scouts decided to embrace is killing the Boy Scouts. Many corporations are learning this lesson and doing away with their DEI programs. The Scouts should do the same. It isn’t that the Scouts shouldn’t reach out to all communities and make sure all feel welcome at scout meetings. It isn’t that generous people shouldn’t donate equipment and resources to troops to make scouting affordable to those who otherwise couldn’t participate. It isn’t that troops shouldn’t make sure that everyone is able to find a place and gets a chance to learn leadership by taking on a leadership role.
It is that DEI programs are a trojan horse that highlight racial differences and create hyper-sensitive cultures. They promote taking away what is earned and giving to those who haven’t earned. And they limit what a group does to what those with the least ability in the group can do and hold all ideas as of equal merit.
Corporations have spent millions of dollars on DEI programs and in hiring DEI professionals only to find that it doesn’t work. While Boy Scouts embraces these programs, companies are running away from them. It is time for Scouts to do the same and return to the system and values that has improved the lives of thousands of young men. Do so, and their membership will swell and they’ll be around for another 100 years.
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Scouting culture is what creates value
There has been a huge decline in membership for the BSA. Their ranks have been in decline since the peak in the 1970s, now having just 20% of the 5 million members that they had at the peak. Their membership numbers held fairly flat in the 1980s and 1990s, but the decline has been fairly steady from the 2000s through the 2010s, with a freefall in recent years. The numbers look even worse when you realize that girls have been added recently to the organization through Venturing and directly into BSA troops, meaning the number of boys in the organization has fallen even more than it appears.
One can see the leadership struggling to right the ship. Adding girls and trying to create scouting as a family activity is one change. No doubt the DEI advocates are saying that DEI is needed to grow membership by making the organization more accessible to more people. But these changes will not stop the decline in membership numbers, especially as dues become even higher because of paying off of the lawsuits, scouting activities get limited and more expensive for paying members as a result of DEI, and, most importantly, the scouting experience becomes far less valuable because of DEI.
BSA leadership will say (and may believe) that membership is declining because families are busier and activities like sports leagues are zapping membership. “Kids just have too many choices today and don’t have the time they once did for things Scouting.” But the real issue is that Scouting is losing its value by embracing DEI. Once your product becomes less valuable, people are less willing to purchase it, especially when you raise the price.
And what made Scouting so valuable in the past that has been lost? The Boy Scout Culture. Scouting was not valuable because it was fun or the merit badges scouts could earn. It wasn’t valuable because of the skills that were taught. It was valuable because of the Scout culture that it taught to the boys, that would then help them become successful in life.
What did this culture include:
- Be responsible for yourself
- You are capable of way more than you think you can do
- Plan ahead and be ready for things that may occur
- Be on time and dependable
- Take pride in your appearance
- Protect our nation’s freedoms and respect those who do
- Help others but also expect them to do their part
- Be one who does things
- Be reverent to God and follow His commandments
This is the culture that has improved the lives of thousands of boys who then went on to be President or astronauts, founders of companies, or simply valuable members of their neighborhoods. DEI is changing this culture and removing the value from Scouting.
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Scouting should be single sex and entirely asexual
Adding girl troops to Scouts is fine, but allowing girl and boy troops to do activities together is a big mistake. This issue si that having both sexes participate has changed the experience. Now, before you come back and say that BSA requires girl and boy troops be separate, realize that many troops are just doing activities together because it makes it easier on the parents. They may meet separately on paper, but they meet at the same location at the same time and the other troop creates a distraction. Having campouts, jamborees, and other meetings together has effectively created mixed-sex troops.
Beyond the obvious issues of sexual activities and unwanted pregnancies that occur when you bring teenage boys and girls together, having mixed gender groups totally changes the dynamics. Boys in a group of all boys will behave totally differently than when there are girls present. A beneficial experience is lost when boys start competing to impress girls instead of behaving as boys act when they are among only boys. The same is true for girls. They learn differently without the distractions. Both genders should meet separately and do activities separately (with, perhaps, the exceptions of an occasional awards banquet) so that they have the chance to experience this one-sex environment.
Scouting should also be entirely asexual. There should be no discussions of sex. There should be no displays of affection. Adults who attend events with their significant others should not be acting as couples, just two adults there to support the troop. The boys and girls need this time away from the hypersexuality they see in their daily lives at school and in culture and all of the drama that comes with it. Let them just be kids.
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What’s wrong with DEI?
So, what’s wrong with DEI? Why is it destroying Scouting? Let’s go through each element.
Diversity: Certainly Scouting should not discriminate against people based on race, ethnicity, etc…. Really, Scouting should be welcoming to everyone. And reaching out to groups and making an effort to bring groups into Scouting who have not traditionally participated is a worthy effort both to benefit them and to expand the ranks of the organization.
But diversity as practiced by DEI is just discrimination. Everyone is unique and different, but DEI diversity teaches that factors like skin color and ethnicity are the most important factor in determining the diversity of a group. It assumes that those of the same skin color are going to be the same. That a victory for people of a particular ethnicity is a victory for all of those ethnicity. It teaches that a person’s identity is wrapped up in unimportant factors like hair style and melatonin levels.
Pushing racial and ethnic diversity also poisons the relationship between the organization and its biggest supporters. Those individuals who have spent decades teaching youth and giving their time to Scouting events. Promoting making the racial make-up of the membership with all races included in equal numbers and judging participants based on their race causes these individuals to feel like they aren’t important because they aren’t the right race. This will chase out the people who have been keeping Scouting alive.
Yes, seek to bring new people and new groups into Scouting, but don’t worry about what meaningless things like what race these new members are. Don’t even track the racial make-up of the organization. Don’t worry about how many ethnicities you have in BSA leadership roles. People are people.
Equity: Equity will chase people away and destroy the organization quickly. The reason is that equity is just Marxist socialism with the idea that goods should be distributed based on need rather than merit. At its core this is just thievery from those who earn things. Penalizing those that produce is a sure way to turn-off and drive away those who produce.
To create equity, troops are told that “Individuals must be provided with what is needed for them to succeed.” This sounds benign enough. Even virtuous. But what is the effect?
Let’s say that a patrol of 10 scouts wants to go on a camping trip. They figure out a menu and a shopping list. The food is going to cost $200 for the six meals. Let’s say that 5 of the 10 scouts say they can’t afford the $20. But individuals must be provided with what they need. What probably happens? Those who can pay end up paying $40 instead of $20. The parents think (rightly) that is a lot for a camping trip every month. It’s a lot because they’re paying for more than just their share.
So, maybe the troop decides to do fundraisers to cover things like camping trips. They schedule a car wash, bake sale, etc…. But what if the scouts who don’t pay also don’t show up for the fundraiser? Again, they need to be provided what they need. So, again, some of the parents are now giving their time to raise money for Scouts to cover those who cannot pay and also don’t show up for fundraising events. They could just pay for the meals and costs for their children, but they are at the fundraisers to support the troop. Eventually they decide Scouts is too much time and too much money. So they leave and then there are fewer people who pay for things. The problem gets worse for those who stay and the death spiral for membership starts.
Charity to help cover costs so more kids can participate is good. Donations of equipment to troops that they can lend out is great. But the idea that every scout must be provided “what they need” is untenable. Instead, Boy Scouts should expand fundraising opportunities for those who need to raise money. (And not the grossly overpriced popcorn. Provide opportunities to sell things people actually want at a fair price.) If scouts do not participate in those opportunities, the rest of the troop should not be expected to cover them.
It might also be that some kids don’t get to do some of the more expensive activities. That’s life. But don’t deny these opportunities from those who can because their parents have earned the ability to give their kids these experiences.
Inclusion: Underlying inclusion is the idea that everyone should be included in everything. All activities should be things that everyone can do. Inclusion also involves valuating everyone’s ideas and beliefs. Everyone’s ways of doing things, everyone’s religious beliefs (or lack there of), everyone’s values are just as good as any others. This is probably the most damaging of all of the DEI concepts.
First of all, it will have the effect of limiting the experiences the scouts have. Activities that everyone can’t do won’t be done. Maybe there are some scouts who can do 20 mile hikes through the Grand Canyon but others who can’t. The ones who can won’t get that experience because the troop isn’t doing things everyone can’t do because of inclusion.
Instead, it should be accepted that not everyone will be able to do everything. Activities that all can do should be included, but each scout should have opportunities to live up to his/her potential. Before DEI, this was already designed as a part of Scouting with the patrol system.
Secondly, all ideas and value systems are not equal and should not be placed on equal footing. As previously stated, Scouts has been so successful and the program was so valuable to participants because Scouting has a culture and that culture leads to success. It has values like being self-sufficient and doing a good turn daily. It has been rooted in a belief in God and the values that He has provided.
If this culture is replaced by any and everyone’s culture, it these values are replaced with any and everyone’s values, Scouting loses what makes it valuable. People may come from different cultures, but when they are in Scouts they are all following and learning the Scouting culture. They are all Scouts. They are not bringing their culture and following their own values. To have them do so destroys the whole value of Scouting. This loses benefits not only for those from cultures who have always been involved Scouting, but those from other cultures who would benefit by learning Scouting culture.
If teens are going to attend and just bring the same culture and value system that they are in while they are at home or at school, what is the point of them attending? BSA just becomes another activity. It lives up to its “BabySitters of America” reputation. People aren’t going to give their time to just watch other people’s kids and not really do anything to help their own kids or the others live a better life. That will lead to the decline and the death of the organization.
Last words
This is my love letter to the Boy Scouts, or whatever name it chooses to call itself by. I want the best for you. I want you to survive. But this will only happen if you return to teaching the values and being the program that made you successful.
Your issue is not kids sports leagues. It isn’t that you’re “old-fashioned.” Your issue is you, what you have become. It is time to change your ways and return to providing something of great value to the millions of youth who participate today and those in generations to come. Please turn things around before it is too late.
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