Taking its cues from Monday’s New York Times, Wednesday’s CBS This Morning offered a similarly fawning profile of some young girls in California who are “scouting for change” as they try to force the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) to admit them as members as they preferred the BSA over the Girl Scouts.
Co-host Noah O’Donnell teased the upcoming segment by asking if “girl power” will be able to “win over the Boy Scouts” even though there’s a “legal loophole that could keep them out.”
O’Donnell further hyped after a commercial break that there was “[n]ew pressure this morning on the Boy Scouts of America” as “[a] group of young people is asking a local chapter to let girls in at full members.”
Feeding the tried and true liberal narrative that they’re never satisified, O’Donnell remarked that “[t]he push comes four months after the Boy Scouts made history by allowing gay adults to become leaders.”
Correspondent Mireya Villareal traveled to Northern California to speak with the girls, who refer to “their group [as] the unicorns” with the segment starting by showing them “teaching each other to build a camp fire because they say it's the sort of thing they didn’t learn in the Girl Scouts.”
One of the girls involved named Ella Jacobs told Villareal that she and her friends are doing it because “I got jealous of what my brother got to do because he’s a Boy Scout.”
Villareal also provided viewers with some background on the girls and now they’ve been turned down membership by the local Boy Scout council:
10-year-old Ella Jacobs and her friend Ally Westover decided they were more interested in what the boys were doing, so last fall, they started participating in activities along a local Boy Scout troop....News of the girl’s participation reached the local Boy Scout council which, last month, barred them from further scouting activities.
Even though Jacobs referred to the BSA council as “not nice” and “discriminatory,” both Villareal and the girls she spoke with neglected to mention that, while these girls are not quite make the age minimum, the BSA has a full-fledged program that’s intended to be co-ed known as Venturing with groups referred to as Crews.
For membership, young men and women must be 14 years old. As to this writer’s knowledge, there’s nothing close this in the Girl Scouts.
The CBS News reporter turned to Jacob’s mother, who serves as their leader and declared that “I don't think that having girls join and having a co-ed program necessarily destroys that tradition.”
After the segment concluded, co-hosts O’Donnell and Charlie Rose gushed over the girls’ actions, but co-host Gayle King had a slightly different take before moving on: “I still like the Girl Scouts and I still like the Boy Scouts. Just up the ante on the Girl Scouts. You know, Boy Scouts can be Boy Scouts.”
Full Disclosure: This is author earned his Eagle Scout in 2009 with Troop 102 in Lancaster, PA and joined Scouting as a Tiger Cub in the fall of 1998 while in the first grade with Pack 102 (also in Lancaster, PA).
The relevant portions of the transcript from November 25's CBS This Morning can be found below.
CBS This Morning
November 25, 2015
8:17 a.m. Eastern [TEASE][ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Ahead; Scouting for Change]
NORAH O’DONNELL: Can girl power win over the Boy Scouts? Kids on a mission talk to Mireya Villarreal.
MIREYA VILLAREAL [TO GIRLS]: Do you think that that maybe was hard for some of the boys to take?
ELLA JACOBS: Yes. I think they were all a little surprised that we could do the same things that they could.
O’DONNELL: Next, the legal loophole that could keep them out.
(....)
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Scouting for Change; California Girls Fight for Right to Join Boys]
O’DONNELL: New pressure this morning on the Boy Scouts of America. A group of young people is asking a local chapter to let girls in at full members. The push comes four months after the Boy Scouts made history by allowing gay adults to become leaders. Mireya Villarreal is in Northern California and she talked with the girls who aren't letting setbacks stop their campaign.
VILLAREAL: They call their group the unicorns. These six young girls are teaching each other to build a camp fire because they say it's the sort of thing they didn’t learn in the Girl Scouts.
JACOBS: I got jealous of what my brother got to do because he’s a Boy Scout.
VILLAREAL: 10-year-old Ella Jacobs and her friend Ally Westover decided they were more interested in what the boys were doing, so last fall, they started participating in activities along a local Boy Scout troop.
ALLY WESTOVER: I really like competitions and I really enjoy competitive nature and also working in teams, so being in Boy Scouts, it gave me the opportunity to work with boys and girls alike in a competitive nature.
(....)
VILLAREAL: News of the girl’s participation reached the local Boy Scout council which, last month, barred them from further scouting activities.
JACOBS: They are just being discriminatory and not nice.
(....)
VILLAREAL: Ella's mom is a boy and Girl Scout leader helped the girls to formally apply to become a Boy Scout. Last week, they were rejected.
ELLA JACOBS’s MOTHER: I don't think that having girls join and having a co-ed program necessarily destroys that tradition.
VILLAREAL: In a statement, the Boy Scouts of America tells CBS This Morning: “We understand that the values and the lessons of Scouting are attractive to the entire family. However, Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts are year-round programs for boys and young men.” The girls claim the local Boy Scouts Council is breaking its own policy that bars discrimination based on gender, yet the federal Title IX law that prohibits such prejudice contains a specific exemption for the Boy Scouts. [TO GIRLS] The Boy Scouts have such a long-standing tradition. This is hard for people.
WESTOVER: It's understandable because they have been this way for a hundred years.
JACOBS: But I think they should at least try to accept some change.
WESTOVER: Yeah. Change is good.
VILLAREAL: For CBS This Morning, Mireya Villarreal, Sebastopol California.
CHARLIE ROSE: She said it right. Change is good.
O’DONNELL: Change is good.
GAYLE KING: I still like the Girl Scouts and I still like the Boy Scouts. Just up the ante on the Girl Scouts. You know, Boy Scouts can be Boy Scouts.
