The Year in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: What the BSA accomplished, and where it's going next

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It’s been a big year for diversity, equity and inclusion in the Boy Scouts of America.

There’s been a lot to talk about during the last 12 months, and I’ve done my best to keep you updated on what’s happening every week. But things get lost, inboxes get cluttered and we all miss stuff sometimes. So in my last deep dive of the year, I’m giving you an overview of the major milestones for DEI and LGBTQ+ inclusion in the BSA in 2022.

Merit badge, meet membership

At the very start of 2022, scout leaders across the country were busy digging into the new Citizenship in Society merit badge, a highly-anticipated milestone for DEI programming in the BSA.

The badge was released at the tail end of 2021, and created quite a bit of conversation about its surprises and shortcomings. But the real momentum of teaching it in the field carried through well into this year.

When I spoke to merit badge counselors about how it was landing in their units, I came away with a clear takeaway: The badge is very much what you make of it.

In Washington, D.C., Stacey Brideau Capell found her conversations with scouts to be deep and enlightening, even for her. “My kids had a better grasp of a lot of this stuff than I probably had after graduating college. They were just on it,” she told me.

And in the virtual classroom, Ash Hennessey found that scouts were willing to share “raw experiences and emotions” and be vulnerable in discussing heavy topics.

But these counselors also knew their “versions” of the merit badge, so to speak, were probably not universal. “I think it is very broad, there’s nothing really specific,” Hennessey said of the requirements. Hennessey and Brideau Capell were willing to take it further, but certainly not every merit badge counselor would be.

Councils stepping up to the plate

While the BSA’s national office worked to develop DEI programming, like the merit badge, local councils were not waiting to make moves of their own. In fact, many of the actions crucial to creating a more welcoming Scouting program were undertaken by council leaders who saw opportunities in their area.

One example was the Northeast Illinois Council, whose president Ken Morrison wrote a guest essay for this newsletter outlining some of the DEI priorities in his service area.

Under Morrison’s leadership, Northeast Illinois has formed a council-wide Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee; increased the diversity of the council’s executive board members; made public apologies about the harm caused to historically marginalized or excluded communities; developed a gender support plan for transitioning or questioning youth; and re-assessed summer camp operations to promote a welcoming and inclusive environment.

The council also developed a detailed list of suggestions for actions at the unit level that can boost diversity, equity and inclusion, which you can see in Morrison’s essay.

Revving up representation

Speaking of councils, Cascade Pacific in Portland made news this year with the hiring of Gary Carroll, who has become the nation’s first openly gay scout executive.

Carroll is also the council’s first Black scout executive. And while both of those identities represent important progress in terms of diversity in leadership, Carroll was adamant that being a “first” was not his priority.

“I’m not doing this because I’m gay. I'm not doing this because I'm Black. I’m just not letting the challenges that come with those two parts of my identity stop me from doing what’s important,” Carroll told me.

In his first few months on the job, Carroll has found a welcoming community, and the momentum he needs to make real progress.

He wasn’t the only one to make history as a “first” this year.

In November, Cortland Bolles was named as the new national director of the Order of the Arrow, making him the first openly gay man to occupy that role.

Similarly, Bolles didn’t have representation in mind when he sought out the position. His main focus is making sure the OA can be a source of strength for the BSA as the organization emerges from the pandemic and bankruptcy case.

“I definitely wouldn't want to be the first if there isn't a second and a third and a hundredth and a thousandth,” Bolles told me.

But he does see the value in being visible in his new role.

“If there are scouts, or even leaders, who see me or … other professionals, other staff members, support staff, camp staff, whatever, in the future [and] that helps them see that, ‘Yeah, I can identify with that person, I can see myself as a part of this program now,’ to me, that would be the greater ancillary benefit than being the first on a list,” he said.

Inclusion in action at NOAC

One of the biggest single moments for DEI work this year was, undoubtedly, the affinity space programming at the National Order of the Arrow Conference.

I know I’m probably biased, as I was a member of the ArrowPride staff, but I was truly blown away by what took place at NOAC this summer.

Youth of seemingly all stripes eagerly filled the affinity spaces at all hours of every day, soaking in the material and vacuuming up the swag on offer. At the DEI training sessions, scouts were keyed in and passionate about their own attempts to operationalize inclusion at a local level. And plenty of the adults and staff in the room were transformed by their experience in these spaces, prompting more than a few to come out to me over the course of the week.

Eleanor Philips, lead adviser for the Scouts with Disabilities space, told me this after the conference: "What will remain with me is the times when adults and youth came in and actually started to cry, because they have scouts that they can now help and not be afraid of doing the wrong thing.”

Scouts BSA task force makes progress

2022 marked the first full year of the newly-formed Scouts BSA task force for diversity, equity and inclusion. I caught up with the committee’s leader, Kaleen Deatherage, in October to learn about some of the progress they’ve made so far.

Deatherage touted a course she ran at Philmont that focused on how to better serve women and underrepresented communities in Scouting. The attendees at the adult training tackled topics like unconscious bias, imposter syndrome and how to be an “upstander.”

Deatherage was proud of what she accomplished with the group of about 20 scouters, but she recognized that the real success is in the local initiatives that grow out of the course. Two women from California, for example, are taking what they learned and putting on a conference for their council.

The task force has also been helping units navigate challenges with the “linked troop” model. Through webinars and other programming, Deatherage has been collecting feedback and offering advice on how to successfully run program for boys, girls and nonbinary youth.

The year ahead

The single biggest thing on my radar for 2023 is the National Jamboree.

Much like at NOAC this past summer, the BSA plans to create a number of affinity spaces at the Jamboree that cater to historically excluded or marginalized groups. I’ll be watching how these spaces take shape, and how they build on the lessons learned from the conference this summer. (And, if all goes according to plan, I’ll be visiting Jambo and giving you a first-person view of it).

I’ll also be keeping an eye out for more local initiatives that grow out of national DEI programming. At NOAC, I heard over and over again that local leaders were interested in creating their own affinity spaces back home, or implementing new inclusion strategies in their councils. I’m interested to see which units and councils take the lead in 2023.

And finally, I’ll be curious how the BSA handles ongoing questions about the participation of trans and nonbinary youth. Much of the guidance for local leaders—around issues like tenting, summer camp and gender-separated troops—has been on a case-by-case basis. I’ll continue to report on these challenges, and whether any more concrete solutions emerge from the national office.

That’s all I got for 2022. What did I miss? What was the biggest DEI or LGBTQ+ inclusion news from your neck of the woods this year?