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"Scouts Will Abandon D.E.I. Policies Under Agreement With Pentagon, Hegseth Says
Scouting America said it had staved off a demand from the Pentagon to ban girls from the organization and change its name back to Boy Scouts of America.
Scouts Will Abandon D.E.I. Policies Under Agreement With Pentagon, Hegseth Says
Scouting America said it had staved off a demand from the Pentagon to ban girls from the organization and change its name back to Boy Scouts of America.
Scouting America will discontinue programs and policies aimed at promoting diversity in order to maintain support from the Department of Defense, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said on Friday.
Mr. Hegseth also said that the organization was banning transgender people from openly participating, but Scouting America said the claim that it had changed its policies on transgender members was false.
'Scouting America will continue to welcome all youth into our programs, and we remain committed to creating an environment where all youth feel valued and respected,' the organization said in a statement sent to The New York Times.
Roger Krone, the president and chief executive of Scouting America, said to The Associated Press that 'we have transgender people in our program and we’ll have transgender people in our program going forward.'
In his announcement, Mr. Hegseth attacked Scouting America and the changes the organization had made in recent years to become more inclusive and tolerant. In hyperbolic language, he decried the organization as anti-American and railed against what he called transgenderism' 'Earth-centered pagan religions' and other 'insidious radical woke ideology' that he said had crept into its values.
After that announcement, Scouting America released a statement saying that it was 'making programmatic updates to comply with Executive Order 14173,' a declaration from President Trump that aimed to eliminate all policies that promoted diversity, equity and inclusion in the federal government. Many other details of the agreement remained unclear.
As part of the move to abandon diversity efforts, Mr. Hegseth said Scouting America had agreed to do away with the 'Citizenship in Society' merit badge, which is earned by scouts who 'realize the benefits of diversity, equity, inclusion, and ethical leadership.' An advisory on Scouting America’s website said that badge was discontinued effective Friday."
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/us/politics/scouting-america-dei-pentagon-hegseth.html