Boys will be boys. And, according to court documents, girls should be Girl Scouts.
The Girl Scouts of the United States of America, in a pointed Manhattan Federal Court filing, accused the Boy Scouts of America of wrongfully crossing the gender line by poaching potential female members from their organization over the past two years.
“As a result of Boy Scouts’ infringement, parents have mistakenly enrolled their daughters in Boy Scouts thinking it was Girl Scouts,” the 108-year-old group charged in a Christmas Eve court filing. “According to the Boy Scouts, blame for the rampant marketplace confusion lies at everybody’s feet but its own.”
The Boy Scouts opened its Cub Scouts to girls in August 2018 and its Scout BSA troops to older girls just six months later.
That same year, the Girl Scouts filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America, or BSA. Lawyers for the Boy Scouts recently dismissed the lawsuit as “utterly meritless” and asked a judge to toss it out before trial.
But the Girl Scouts, in their latest court filings, said the BSA’s move to open its doors to girls was “extraordinary and highly damaging … (causing) an explosion of confusion” among its potential membership.
“The parties’ programs, which have many similarities, are now directly competitive,” said the Girl Scouts court papers. The group also cited “rampant instances of confusion and mistaken instances of association between the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts” since 2018.
Both groups have suffered membership declines in recent years with the rise of youth sports leagues and hectic family schedules. A BSA spokesman did not immediately respond Saturday for comment.
Court papers indicate the Girl Scouts are also seeking unspecified compensation for expenses incurred in its efforts to draw a line of distinction between the two groups in areas where “the most confusion (was) being caused by Boy Scouts” opening their doors to girls.
According to one email submitted in the Girl Scouts’ filing, two areas of Arkansas and Texas were specifically “inundated with BSA recruitments … and they are recruiting girls hard and heavy.”
The Boy Scouts website currently features two laughing girls, arms around one another, front and center. And the court documents alleged that the Boy Scouts used “intellectual property” of the Girl Scouts after its decision to admit members of both sexes.
“Boy Scouts knew full well … that SCOUT, SCOUTS and SCOUTING, when used in connection with girls’ services, could only create associations with Girl Scouts unless other distinguishing content referencing Boy Scouts of America appeared in advertising and promotional materials,” the court documents charged.
“But it did so anyway, and the only plausible inference is that its motive was to free-ride off the Girl Scouts ‘impeccable’ reputation,” the filing said.
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