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Citing in part the hundreds of sexual abuse lawsuits it faces, the 110-year-old organization known to most as Boy Scouts of American filed for bankruptcy protection this week. The organization is now Scouts BSA, reflecting a recent decision to allow girls to participate at all levels. Its plight presents a profound ethical quandary: How can we strike the proper balance between the legal rights of victims and the survival of a charitable organization that has touched the lives of 110 million Americans?
Scouts BSA
Scouting was founded in the first decade of the 20th century by Robert Baden-Powell, a British Boer War Veteran who believed that boys needed more structure and purpose in life. In 1908, he published Scouting for Boys, which sold over 150 million copies and became one of the best-selling books of the 20th century. Contemporary Scouts BSA includes Cub Scouts (through fifth grade), Scouts BSA (ages 11 to 18), and Venturing, which extends through age 21.
The organization now boasts about 2 million youth participants, of whom approximately 100,000 have some form of disability. The highest rank a scouting participant can attain is that of Eagle Scout, an achievement earned by only about 4 percent of scouts. Among Americans who have achieved this rank are Neil Armstrong, Michael Bloomberg, and Gerald Ford.
Scouts BSA aims to foster character, citizenship, personal fitness, and leadership. Scouting provides many participants their first opportunity to wear a uniform, camp outdoors, and earn badges and other formal recognition for their efforts. For many it also introduces such experiences as taking an oath to abide by a code of conduct, assuming formal leadership responsibility for others, and administering first aid. It may represent the nation’s largest non-sectarian youth character education program.
Bankruptcy
In recent years, Scouts BSA has faced challenges. Accusations that the organization did not adequately police bullying led it to adopt a Bullying Awareness Program. Disputes over gays as members and leaders led the Mormon Church to withdraw 400,000 of its members. More recently, the opening of Scouts BSA to girls garnered a strong rebuke from Girl Scouts, which defended what it called the power of a “single-gender environment.” But no issue has provoked more alarm than sexual abuse.
Court testimony has suggested that as many as 7,800 leaders may have been involved in the abuse of more than 12,000 children over the course of 7 decades. In one highly publicized 2010 Oregon case, a former scout received an award of $18 million for abuse by an assistant scoutmaster. The number of claimants has increased substantially in recent years, as states have passed laws allowing such suits to proceed with no statute of limitations.
In response, Scouts BSA has appointed new leadership, announced a partnership with an organization for survivors of sexual abuse, apologized to “anyone who was harmed in scouting,” paid for counseling for abuse victims, put in place a Youth Protection Program to prevent future abuse, and described its bankruptcy filing as an attempt to “ensure that we can equitably compensate all victims of past abuse in our programs, through a proposed Victim’s Compensation Trust.”
The bankruptcy filing is complex, not only because of the organization’s long history in all 50 states, but also because many of its assets are held locally, not by the national organization, which is estimated to have holdings of more than $1 billion. At least over the next few years, the bankruptcy filing is unlikely to interrupt Scouts BSA programming at the local level, though the ultimate fate of such nationally-held assets as high-adventure bases in New Mexico and Florida is very much in doubt.
No one questions that young people have been abused by scouts and scout leaders, that Scouts BSA might have done more to prevent such abuse, or that its victims have suffered harms that can never be reversed. There is also no question that the organization has paid and will pay large financial settlements to victims. Such settlements may eventually cripple the organization, jeopardizing its future programming and perhaps even leading to its liquidation.
Some critics, including many plaintiffs attorneys, have argued that the bankruptcy filing will deprive victims of the opportunity to tell their stories in court and limit the amount of settlements they receive to funds available to through the victim compensation fund, instead of all the assets held by Scouts BSA and its local affiliated organizations. Some may even wish to see scouting liquidated entirely, as punishment for its failure to protect vulnerable participants.
Others argue that the liquidation of Scouts BSA programming would do grievous injury not just to the organization itself but to millions of current scouts and future generations of youth and adults, who would be deprived on an opportunity to learn, grow, and serve through its ongoing programs. They admit that great harm has been done under the auspices of scouting but argue that the offenses of a relatively small number of perpetrators should not undo the good that flows from scouting.
How Americans grapple with such competing priorities both reveals and shapes our national character. How do we balance the need to do justice with the desire to do good? One thing is certain: The effects of the balance we strike will be felt not just for years but for generations to come.
