A post-Hegseth reading list: The best analysis about what comes next for Scouting
Here’s some of the best writing and analysis to help you make sense of the news.
You might have noticed that I’ve been a bit quiet the past few weeks, as the Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth enacted a public crusade against Scouting America.
In truth, I felt a bit paralyzed by the news. When the main bombshell dropped the last weekend in February, I was away on a birthday trip. And generally, now that I’m living in Italy, I feel a bit out-of-the-loop on Scouting. What did I really have to add to the discourses? Not much, it seemed.
But enough excuses. Now that some of the dust has settled, I want to highlight some of what I see as the best writing and analysis to help you make sense of the news.
For each piece, I’ll give my commentary in the callout box, then highlight some quotes that are worth reading, with my own emphasis in bold. Full articles are linked on each headline.
On the eve of Iran war, the ‘Secretary of War’ fought with the Boy Scouts. He didn’t win.
By Jeo Eskenazi / Mission Local
As far as transgender kids, a bevy of Scout leaders were befuddled by Hegseth’s claim about how, moving forward, you’ll have to check a box on an application with one of two genders. You already do. … Hegseth waded further into bizarre territory when he stated that “Scouting America will enact a policy that indicates that biological boys and biological girls will not be permitted to share intimate spaces, including toilets, showers and tents.” Those policies also already exist.
Hegseth crowed about eliminating DEI committees. But plenty of Scout leaders who ran these committees saw the writing on the wall years ago, and proactively renamed them.
Pentagon and Scouting America reach deal to keep ties after Hegseth’s anti-DEI push
By Ben Finley and Jamie Stengle / Associated Press
Scouting America, formerly known as the Boy Scouts of America, said the agreement does not change existing policies regarding transgender youth and that they are welcome. “We have transgender people in our program and we’ll have transgender people in our program going forward,” Scouting America President and CEO Roger Krone told The Associated Press.
SCOTUS Protected the Scouts’ Right to Exclude Me—And Their Right to Be Inclusive
By James Dale / TIME
Now, 25 years later, the federal government is doing exactly what the Supreme Court said the government cannot do: pressuring a private organization over who belongs in its program. In my case, New Jersey had passed a law requiring the Scouts to include me. But the Court said the state had no such power. Today, there is no law. And yet, the Department of War is threatening to pull military support unless Scouting America changes its membership rules. That is not a legal argument. It is an authoritarian overreach of a private organization.
When I lost my case, the Supreme Court handed the Scouts a constitutional shield: the right to define their own membership free from government interference. Hegseth isn’t misreading that decision. He’s ignoring it when it gets in his way.
In 2000, the Court said the Scouts had the right to be exclusive. Today, that same right protects their choice to be inclusive.
The Scouts are too woke, according to Pete Hegseth
By Christina Cala, Gene Demby, B.A. Parker, Leah Donnella / NPR Code Switch
They are - were, ironically, in the [19] teens and '20s and '30s, quite, quote, "liberal progressive.” And, you know, if you want to call it in modern-day parlance, DEI-oriented, including people that had been marginalized in society - African Americans, Jewish people, Catholic people, immigrants. The Scouts were very proactive in the 19-teens and '20s and '30s ... on including those people, making them welcome, bringing them in on their own terms. They weren't as open as they are now on the gender front. But in terms of race and ethnicity and religion, they were liberal progressive and DEI in the 19-teens and ‘20s.
What came in the 1980s was not really that similar to what came before. They kind of became a different beast and became more narrower, less welcoming, less accepting in the '80s than they had been the previous 70 years, to be honest.
That's all for now, folks.
I hope this was helpful for you all. For those in the thick of it—doing Scouting, even in this wild era—I wish you all the best.
