It’s a battle of the scouts.
The Girl Scouts of the USA slammed the Boy Scouts of America’s decision to begin allowing girls to join their ranks Thursday, according to a new report.
“The Boy Scouts’ house is on fire,” Girl Scouts told ABC News in a statement. “Instead of addressing systemic issues of continuing sexual assault, financial mismanagement and deficient programming, BSA’s senior management wants to add an accelerate to the house fire by recruiting girls.”
The loaded criticism comes a day after BSA announced their board’s unanimous decision to allow girls to join the Cub Scouts program starting next year, and to establish a Scouting program for older girls in 2019.
Girl Scouts were surprised by this decision and confirmed they were not made aware of the policy change prior to its announcement, a media representative said.
Discord between the two organizations has been brewing since August, when Girl Scouts president Kathy Hopinkah Hannan sent a scathing letter to the Boy Scouts formally requesting that they stop their “covert campaign to recruit girls,” calling it “reckless” and “unsettling.”
“We are confused as to why, rather than working to appeal to the 90 percent of boys who are not involved in BSA programs, you would choose to target girls,” Hannan wrote.
Boy Scout membership has plummeted by a third since 2000 to just more than 2 million as of 2016, and the letter suggested the group was using proposed girls programs to bolster “declining membership.”
On Wednesday, the Girls Scouts seemed to slyly respond to the BSA decision with a blog post citing the power of the “single-gender environment.”
“Girl Scouts is the best girl leadership organization in the world, created with and for girls,” the organization wrote. “We are the girl experts, and for more than a century we have provided millions of girls opportunities for adventure, inspiration, and valuable mentoring.”
The Girl Scouts organization has a membership of 1.8 million, according to its website.
They have no plan to change their programs at the moment, a media rep said.