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Boy Scouts move to allow girls met with differing views in the Triad
Oct 12, 2017 | The Greensboro News & Record
By Andre L. Taylor
Starting next year, girls can become Cub Scouts in the Boy Scouts of America, and older girls will be able to become Eagle Scouts. -
ABC 11 Eyewitness News at 11PM
Oct 12, 2017 | WTVD (ABC 11)
By Raleigh-Durham
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/30080290?token=30bb21d8-4125-4760-9809-436a13aed8e8
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Boy Scouts move to allow girls met with differing views in the Triad
Oct 12, 2017 | The Greensboro News & Record
By Andre L. Taylor
Starting next year, girls can become Cub Scouts in the Boy Scouts of America, and older girls will be able to become Eagle Scouts.
The momentous change is the latest for the organization. Just in the past five years the group has agreed to accept openly gay youth members and adult volunteers, as well as transgender boys.
Cecelia Shaw of Greensboro took offense to the news that the Boys Scouts of America opened its doors to female members.
Shaw, who has more than 40 years of service with the Girl Scouts of the USA, said luring young girls with the idea they could become Eagle Scouts diminishes the legacy of the Girl Scouts’ highest honor, the Gold Award.
The award is a seven-part project that the Ambassador, which is the highest level of the Girl Scouts, must complete. The Ambassador must create a community program and work with a business or agency that promises to continue the program over the years.
“The thing that bothers me most is they have not looked at how important the Girl Scouts’ Gold Award is,” said Shaw, who is the leader of Troop 4085 at Providence Baptist Church in Greensboro.
Girl Scout officials have suggested the BSA’s move was driven partly by a need to boost revenue, and they contended there is fiscal stress in part because of past settlements paid by the BSA in sex-abuse cases.
In August, the president of the Girl Scouts, Kathy Hopinkah Hannan, accused the Boy Scouts of seeking to covertly recruit girls into their programs while disparaging the Girl Scouts’ operations. On Monday, Latino civic leader Charles Garcia, just days after being named to the Girl Scouts’ national board, wrote an opinion piece for the Huffington Post calling the BSA’s overture to girls “a terrible idea.”
“The Boy Scouts’ house is on fire,” Garcia wrote. “Instead of addressing systemic issues of continuing sexual assault, financial mismanagement and deficient programming, BSA’s senior management wants to add an accelerant to the house fire by recruiting girls.”
Instead of recruiting girls, Garcia said the BSA should focus on attracting more black, Latino and Asian boys — particularly those from low-income households.
On Wednesday, the Boy Scouts of America Board of Directors unanimously voted to allow girls into the all-male organization. The vote came after the organization researched the feasibility of adding girls after several requests from girls and parents. Girls would be allowed to enter the Cub Scout program and work their way to Eagle Scout status. Girls can begin signing up to join the Boy Scouts beginning in the 2018 program year.
The organization’s announcement comes a week after the Girl Scouts’ national convention.
Shaw said there was no mention that their scouting counterparts were considering making this announcement.
“I don’t see it as something that will draw hundreds of girls,” Shaw said.
Adding girls to something traditionally for boys doesn’t bother Lisa Fowler.
For the last four years, Fowler has served as assistant Cub Scout master for Troop 396 in Anderson, N.C. She said there are already several women in leadership roles in local and national scouting.
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ABC 11 Eyewitness News at 11PM
Oct 12, 2017 | WTVD (ABC 11)
By Raleigh-Durham
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/30080290?token=30bb21d8-4125-4760-9809-436a13aed8e8
Rough Transcript: we have new reaction to a story we first told you about here last night, the boy scouts getting ready to let girls in the cub scout program next year. not everyone is on board. girl scouts have been trying to diswade the move. we talked to the ceo of the girl scouts of north carolina coastal pines today to get her opinion about it. >> we provide girls e opportunity to raise their hand, find their voice. in an environment that is all- girl, safe, that hits them not have those social pressures associated with a co ed experience. >> the boy scouts are also planning to establish a program for older girls based on the boy scout curriculum, letting them become eagle scouts.
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