Boy Scouts of America Gets New Name to Reflect Its Newest Members
After more than 100 years, the Boy Scouts of America are getting a rebrand.
On Tuesday, the organization announced that it will be changing its name to Scouting America, to reflect the organization’s thousands of female members.
The new name is the extent of the organization’s rebrand, as girls have been welcomed into the group—which teaches leadership, civic responsibility, and wilderness training to kids—for more than five years. According to the announcement, the organization serves more than 176,000 girls and young women across all its programs. More than 6,000 have earned the rank of Eagle Scout.
Now the organization has the name to match, and it is expected to go into effect on Feb. 8, 2025, 115 years after the organization was first founded.
“Though our name will be new, our mission remains unchanged: we are committed to teaching young people to be Prepared. For Life,” said Roger A. Krone, president and chief executive officer of Scouting America, in a statement released Tuesday. “This will be a simple but very important evolution as we seek to ensure that everyone feels welcome in Scouting.”
The organization already went through a name change in 2018, after it first welcomed girls and young women into the group, shifting from Boy Scouts of America to “Scouts BSA.”
The group was subsequently sued by the Girl Scouts of the USA, arguing that the new name created a monopoly over the term “scout” or “scouting” and effectively marginalized the Girl Scout brand. A court found that the Boy Scouts had not violated their counterparts’ trademark, and the two settled in 2022.
The organization has faced many scandals over the past few years, as more than 82,000 former scouts have come forward alleging they were victims of sexual abuse. In February, the Supreme Court allowed the group to move forward with a $2.46 billion settlement for victims of sexual abuse.
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