"This Settlement is a Start"
July 2, 2021 11:06 AM Subscribe
Boy Scouts reach $850 million settlement with tens of thousands of sexual abuse victims [NBC, content warning, child sexual abuse]
Related: Boy Scouts will sell Norman Rockwell paintings to fund sexual abuse claim payments
Related: Boy Scouts will sell Norman Rockwell paintings to fund sexual abuse claim payments
Until this article, I'd thought that Boy Scouts of America had renamed itself Scouts BSA when they started letting girls participate in a kind of awkwardly sequestered fashion.
But no. If you're a girl, you may be able to participate in a program called "Scouts BSA", but it's still part of an organization called "Boy Scouts of America".
Branding is the least of their issues, but I think it's emblematic of how disgustingly out of step the organization is.
posted by gurple at 1:08 PM on July 2, 2021 [4 favorites]
But no. If you're a girl, you may be able to participate in a program called "Scouts BSA", but it's still part of an organization called "Boy Scouts of America".
Branding is the least of their issues, but I think it's emblematic of how disgustingly out of step the organization is.
posted by gurple at 1:08 PM on July 2, 2021 [4 favorites]
As a Scout parent & volunteer, and a former Scout myself, I see so much of value in the program.
As a citizen and a parent, the incredible litany of crimes is utterly repulsive.
And as a human I ache for those boys and men who were hurt.
Burning it all down hurts current and future kids, but how can we not do anything to try to make amends for the past? Goodness know there isn't enough money to go around to start to repay the host of victims, but we have to try. (Might help if the lawyers worked pro bono on a case so big....) And most of the offenders will be long gone by now, though crimes committed in Michigan might not fall under their statue of limitations.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:27 PM on July 2, 2021 [5 favorites]
As a citizen and a parent, the incredible litany of crimes is utterly repulsive.
And as a human I ache for those boys and men who were hurt.
Burning it all down hurts current and future kids, but how can we not do anything to try to make amends for the past? Goodness know there isn't enough money to go around to start to repay the host of victims, but we have to try. (Might help if the lawyers worked pro bono on a case so big....) And most of the offenders will be long gone by now, though crimes committed in Michigan might not fall under their statue of limitations.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:27 PM on July 2, 2021 [5 favorites]
Until this article, I'd thought that Boy Scouts of America had renamed itself Scouts BSA when they started letting girls participate in a kind of awkwardly sequestered fashion.
But no. If you're a girl, you may be able to participate in a program called "Scouts BSA", but it's still part of an organization called "Boy Scouts of America".
They're trying to cannibalize the Girl Scouts in an effort to save themselves from the rotten fruits of their own corruption and neglect. I had a great time in the Scouts when I was a kid, but now, given how vulnerable I was then, I wonder if I was just lucky not to have been preyed upon.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:43 PM on July 2, 2021 [19 favorites]
Selling the art to repay their victims? The Vatican could probably do that many times over just by emptying a single room.
As far as girls go, I expected that the BSA would probably try to market themselves to conservative parents who didn't hold with the GSA's support of LGBT and reproductive rights. Whether that will work, I don't know. (There's the American Heritage Girls, but I have never seen an American Heritage Girl or any evidence of them outside of the context of adult grievances.)
posted by Countess Elena at 1:51 PM on July 2, 2021 [4 favorites]
As far as girls go, I expected that the BSA would probably try to market themselves to conservative parents who didn't hold with the GSA's support of LGBT and reproductive rights. Whether that will work, I don't know. (There's the American Heritage Girls, but I have never seen an American Heritage Girl or any evidence of them outside of the context of adult grievances.)
posted by Countess Elena at 1:51 PM on July 2, 2021 [4 favorites]
Camp Fire is not without their own issues (particularly, massive cultural appropriation in their past, which they've been trying to address), but to me they seem to be doing coed scout-like things pretty well. BPSA is trying hard, too, though they choose to hew pretty close to a lot of BSA traditions and imagery.
It's all about market share and what's available in your area, though.
posted by gurple at 2:59 PM on July 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
It's all about market share and what's available in your area, though.
posted by gurple at 2:59 PM on July 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
As an Eagle Scout, I'm pretty okay with the entire organization being burned to the ground, in the hopes that something better can spring from the ashes.
However, part of me wonders if the remaining leadership at the organization is hoping the same, given that they're allowing these settlements to happen at all. (In other words, this is the organization being deliberately burned to the ground, using the remaining cash/assets on hand to make reparations)
The toxic/wingnut contingent running the organization seem to have mostly fled when the sweet sweet stream of cash from Ross Perot and the Mormons dried up. Since then, we've seen a stark reversal of the organization's worst policies, with the admission of girls into the program, and seemingly sincere (albeit still-inadequate) overtures towards the LGBT community.
If I had kids, I still wouldn't put them into scouts, but that position has softened to a "No," down from "Absolutely fucking not" just a few years ago.
posted by schmod at 3:04 PM on July 2, 2021 [25 favorites]
However, part of me wonders if the remaining leadership at the organization is hoping the same, given that they're allowing these settlements to happen at all. (In other words, this is the organization being deliberately burned to the ground, using the remaining cash/assets on hand to make reparations)
The toxic/wingnut contingent running the organization seem to have mostly fled when the sweet sweet stream of cash from Ross Perot and the Mormons dried up. Since then, we've seen a stark reversal of the organization's worst policies, with the admission of girls into the program, and seemingly sincere (albeit still-inadequate) overtures towards the LGBT community.
If I had kids, I still wouldn't put them into scouts, but that position has softened to a "No," down from "Absolutely fucking not" just a few years ago.
posted by schmod at 3:04 PM on July 2, 2021 [25 favorites]
Thinking about the revelations about the Boy Scouts and Catholic Church, along with long-acknowledged endemic sexual, and physically abuse in boarding schools, makes me reflect on how unable we are as a culture to acknowledge the specific and widespread character of abuse of boys.
posted by latkes at 4:10 PM on July 2, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by latkes at 4:10 PM on July 2, 2021 [11 favorites]
The wing nut bloc still requires the Duty To God clause, and scuttled the Diversity and Inclusion merit badge. They're killing the program, and it's infuriating.
posted by wenestvedt at 4:42 PM on July 2, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by wenestvedt at 4:42 PM on July 2, 2021 [4 favorites]
Where does the BSA get $850 million to cover this settlement? I was in Boy Scouts from the late 1970s into the 1980s, and the organization (at least, the local branches of it near me) never came across as being flush with cash. Must be real estate, camps, etc.?
posted by patrickburns at 5:12 PM on July 2, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by patrickburns at 5:12 PM on July 2, 2021 [3 favorites]
patrickburns, the Guardian article linked above goes into some detail about this, although the article refers to the Scouts' proposing a $300 million victims' fund:
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:28 PM on July 2, 2021 [4 favorites]
The reorganization plan did not indicate how much the Boy Scouts was willing to pay victims. The national organization had more than $1bn in assets when it sought bankruptcy. Local Boy Scouts councils possessed billions more, the Los Angeles Times reported.So, real estate may make up the remainder.
More than 50 Rockwell oil paintings are among hundreds of artworks whose sale could contribute to the victims’ compensation fund. Proceeds from the Boy Scouts’ “oil and gas interests” would also contribute, according to court documents. Attorneys for accusers will probably oppose the proposal, as it leaves out valuable real estate holdings.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:28 PM on July 2, 2021 [4 favorites]
The victims need compensation, but damn, if there ever was a real estate portfolio that shouldn't ever be parceled out and sold, it's that one.
posted by schmod at 6:13 PM on July 2, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by schmod at 6:13 PM on July 2, 2021 [4 favorites]
They put leins on all the High Adventure Bases last year so they are not part of the settlement.
But the trademarks could be, which would allow someone to take those and just....refuse to let anyone use them, effectively euthanizing Scouts.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:14 PM on July 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
But the trademarks could be, which would allow someone to take those and just....refuse to let anyone use them, effectively euthanizing Scouts.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:14 PM on July 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
Where does the BSA get $850 million to cover this settlement?
Well, $600M comes from the local councils -- which means they sell off any buildings they own, and the summer camps and smaller weekend camps.
Look for the real estate market to be flooded with enormous properties, familiar to generations of campers, simply dripping with bad karma.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:30 PM on July 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
Well, $600M comes from the local councils -- which means they sell off any buildings they own, and the summer camps and smaller weekend camps.
Look for the real estate market to be flooded with enormous properties, familiar to generations of campers, simply dripping with bad karma.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:30 PM on July 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'm firmly in the burn-it-down-to-the-ground camp.
I lasted less than two years as a Boy Scout in the early 1990s because the other boys were such miserable little shits determined to exercise their newfound toxic masculinity. I had shadow penises repeatedly projected via flashlight onto my tent at night, I was mocked for not "getting" the meaning of the filthy cadence song they had picked up from the cool ex-marine scout leader, and I was ridiculed for not being as excited as they thought I should have been about the after-hours pornography that was shared between tents (I was, like eleven? twelve?).
Before that, I had really liked Cub Scouts and Webelos. We did all sorts of cool stuff, and our Pack's camping trips were family-oriented and felt like a huge communal weekend getaway.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:04 PM on July 2, 2021 [11 favorites]
I lasted less than two years as a Boy Scout in the early 1990s because the other boys were such miserable little shits determined to exercise their newfound toxic masculinity. I had shadow penises repeatedly projected via flashlight onto my tent at night, I was mocked for not "getting" the meaning of the filthy cadence song they had picked up from the cool ex-marine scout leader, and I was ridiculed for not being as excited as they thought I should have been about the after-hours pornography that was shared between tents (I was, like eleven? twelve?).
Before that, I had really liked Cub Scouts and Webelos. We did all sorts of cool stuff, and our Pack's camping trips were family-oriented and felt like a huge communal weekend getaway.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:04 PM on July 2, 2021 [11 favorites]
I'm sorry you had a shitty time, really. Just last weekend I told my brother essentially the same thing about a summer camp experience he loved that I found excruciating.
I wish you'd had better leaders, and better peers. People, too much of the time, suck. :7(
posted by wenestvedt at 8:08 PM on July 2, 2021 [2 favorites]
I wish you'd had better leaders, and better peers. People, too much of the time, suck. :7(
posted by wenestvedt at 8:08 PM on July 2, 2021 [2 favorites]
I left 3 months after Webelos then joined De Molay. The capes and swords sold me.
posted by clavdivs at 10:02 PM on July 2, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 10:02 PM on July 2, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'm pretty much there with wenestvedt. I hurt for the victims, see the rot in the org, and amends must be made.
I do wish that people had a clearer understanding though that there's no BSA Megacorp to raid for assets, no billionaire CEOs to cut loose, few if any legacy organizational officers still around to get their long overdue comeuppance. What we're talking about is a strip mining a nonprofit that serves kids, further increasing the already ballooning dues of what was once famously affordable, and selling off its generations old, lovingly cared for campgrounds, likely to become commercial properties. The org will likely not survive and working class folks will lose another outlet for getting their kids healthy activity outdoors.
It's entirely right and good to demand victims be compensated. And the org has been mismanaged in myriad ways for decades. It has this coming.
It's still worth noting though, that we're not so much sticking it to the perpetrators as kicking the shins of the good people left holding the bag for them.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:39 AM on July 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
I do wish that people had a clearer understanding though that there's no BSA Megacorp to raid for assets, no billionaire CEOs to cut loose, few if any legacy organizational officers still around to get their long overdue comeuppance. What we're talking about is a strip mining a nonprofit that serves kids, further increasing the already ballooning dues of what was once famously affordable, and selling off its generations old, lovingly cared for campgrounds, likely to become commercial properties. The org will likely not survive and working class folks will lose another outlet for getting their kids healthy activity outdoors.
It's entirely right and good to demand victims be compensated. And the org has been mismanaged in myriad ways for decades. It has this coming.
It's still worth noting though, that we're not so much sticking it to the perpetrators as kicking the shins of the good people left holding the bag for them.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:39 AM on July 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
we're not so much sticking it to the perpetrators as kicking the shins of the good people left holding the bag
Nostalgia on the part of "good people" is exactly what let "bad people" hide among them so long.
posted by basalganglia at 4:58 AM on July 3, 2021 [7 favorites]
Nostalgia on the part of "good people" is exactly what let "bad people" hide among them so long.
posted by basalganglia at 4:58 AM on July 3, 2021 [7 favorites]
I can't disagree -- which is why my unhappiness about taking the program away from current kids is stoking so much anger at the leaders of the past.
A nuance here is that the files of abusers were created for BSA to bar abusers who many communities wouldn't charge -- because they were prominent citizens. BSA failed kids, and so did wider society.
Literally no one looks good here except the kids.
posted by wenestvedt at 5:11 AM on July 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
A nuance here is that the files of abusers were created for BSA to bar abusers who many communities wouldn't charge -- because they were prominent citizens. BSA failed kids, and so did wider society.
Literally no one looks good here except the kids.
posted by wenestvedt at 5:11 AM on July 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
I'm more inclined to say that the good people in Scouts these days hitched up to the wrong wagon. The complicating factor is, there wasn't another one. There isn't another resource for kids like this one. I'm not against BSA going down, I'm just aching for the kids who won't have anything to fill the gap.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:11 AM on July 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:11 AM on July 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
wenestvedt: Thank you. I did have fun in Boy Scouts, and I'm fortunate that the leaders we had weren't themselves abusive and they *did* take action--like after a prank played on me resulted in a concussion. And the kids I knew in Scouts were the same kids I saw at school on a daily basis, and it wasn't like we were the best of friends there either.
It's just all the worst behaviors of adolescent males get amplified when everyone's off in the woods cosplaying as rugged individualists and the only adult supervision is men who fondly remember what they were like at that age and who think they can only reach kids by connecting on that level. My scout leaders enjoyed dealing out little bits of transgressive behavior in exchange for respect--the functional equivalent of teaching a kid blackjack or offering them a sip of beer. Often it took the form of an ever so slightly risque joke or a gross story about someone being dismembered in the war, or overhearing kids use inappropriate language and casually using the same language for fun because "we're all guys here". But the effect of this is it just perpetuates awful behavior, and I don't think it's a coincidence that the best, most approachable, and most considerate scout leaders were the dads who had never scouted before their sons joined up and who were completely new to the organization.
I think the BSA needs to be completely disassembled and reconstructed into something more resembling the GSA. De-emphasize the military aspects, make is much more family inclusive, get more women into the leadership ranks, and stop venerating Eagle Scouts as if they're some sort of god-level tier.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:17 AM on July 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
It's just all the worst behaviors of adolescent males get amplified when everyone's off in the woods cosplaying as rugged individualists and the only adult supervision is men who fondly remember what they were like at that age and who think they can only reach kids by connecting on that level. My scout leaders enjoyed dealing out little bits of transgressive behavior in exchange for respect--the functional equivalent of teaching a kid blackjack or offering them a sip of beer. Often it took the form of an ever so slightly risque joke or a gross story about someone being dismembered in the war, or overhearing kids use inappropriate language and casually using the same language for fun because "we're all guys here". But the effect of this is it just perpetuates awful behavior, and I don't think it's a coincidence that the best, most approachable, and most considerate scout leaders were the dads who had never scouted before their sons joined up and who were completely new to the organization.
I think the BSA needs to be completely disassembled and reconstructed into something more resembling the GSA. De-emphasize the military aspects, make is much more family inclusive, get more women into the leadership ranks, and stop venerating Eagle Scouts as if they're some sort of god-level tier.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:17 AM on July 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
I wish some dynamic folks would seize the reins of the Navigators and help that scale up into something functional.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:20 AM on July 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:20 AM on July 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
Burn it to the ground. I was never sexually abused, but my Scout troop's major focus was humiliation and bullying. Can't think of anything I really gained from participating except emotional trauma. The kind of guys it attracted as leaders in my town were the last guys in the world who should have been teaching anyone anything, least of all how to "be a man."
posted by EatTheWeek at 6:38 AM on July 3, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by EatTheWeek at 6:38 AM on July 3, 2021 [5 favorites]
I am a Scout Leader in Scouts Canada, which started becoming coed in 1972 and was fully coed by the 90s. From my experience, I haven’t seen macho toxic masculinity in scouting. Our group is close to 50% girls and we have trans kids as well. Scouts here seems to attract more quirky kids than macho boys, the kind of kids who feel out of place on sports teams and the like. The macho competitive boys seem to eventually drop out of Scouts to focus on sports or to join Cadets. If we lost Scouts here, there would be nowhere else comparable for kids like my boys to go. They certainly aren’t going to join organized sports. Scouts gives them an organised, outdoor, active, and social activity to participate in.
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:44 AM on July 3, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:44 AM on July 3, 2021 [6 favorites]
That LA Times story shows examples of the worst behaviors, and I recoil from them: as I read them I want that organization to be obliterated.
Instinctively I want to defend a program that has always been good to me and my friends and my family and my sons, but....I can't think of a way to do it.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:24 PM on July 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
Instinctively I want to defend a program that has always been good to me and my friends and my family and my sons, but....I can't think of a way to do it.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:24 PM on July 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
This settlement seems wholly inadequate. The flagship Philmont Scout Ranch property was mortgaged for almost half a billion dollars all by itself. Do you need a Sea Base in Florida and Hawai'i? And the local councils have many, many properties that they no longer have the need for, given that membership has dropped by more than half since the peak. It seems like there is at least a couple billion in assets that you could liquidate without harming the overall program. That would be a fair settlement to give a non-trivial amount of money to every victim, while enabling the national and local organizations to continue their programs.
I will say that Scouts BSA (at least where I have seen) takes youth protection very seriously, much more than other youth organizations. Our troop always keeps it top of mind. The training completely omits BSA's shameful history, which is unfortunate. But it is otherwise well done, required annually, and establishes an environment where I think it would be very difficult for a pedophile to operate.
posted by wnissen at 3:38 PM on July 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
I will say that Scouts BSA (at least where I have seen) takes youth protection very seriously, much more than other youth organizations. Our troop always keeps it top of mind. The training completely omits BSA's shameful history, which is unfortunate. But it is otherwise well done, required annually, and establishes an environment where I think it would be very difficult for a pedophile to operate.
posted by wnissen at 3:38 PM on July 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
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