Scouting America’s National Jamboree stopped providing dedicated spaces for LGBTQ+ young people, women and people of colour after Pentagon officials demanded the organisation abandon initiatives they characterised as “woke”.
Around 15,000 scouts, troop leaders and volunteers recently gathered at the Summit Bechtel Reserve in West Virginia for the 10-day outdoor event, according to the Associated Press.
However, diversity and inclusion spaces previously offered at the jamboree were absent following pressure from Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon.
The areas had been created to provide support and community for queer scouts, girls and young women, and scouts from racially diverse backgrounds.
The Associated Press reported that some scouts who had planned to attend withdrew from the event after learning the spaces would no longer be available.
“Scouting fundamentally is a safe place for young people to have fun,” Samuel J. Aronson, an assistant scoutmaster who previously helped organise inclusive activities at the National Jamboree, told the news agency.
“In the absence of these spaces, we’re denying all that, both the safety and the fun, to thousands of young people.”
A spokesperson for Scouting America said the organisation remained “fully committed to welcoming and serving all youth”, but did not directly explain the removal of the inclusion-focused spaces.
Pentagon attacks diversity initiatives
The dispute between the Pentagon and Scouting America, formerly known as the Boy Scouts of America, escalated in February when Hegseth threatened to withdraw government support unless the organisation complied with the administration’s opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
In a lengthy post published on X on 2 February, chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell criticised changes made by the organisation’s leadership.
“Scouting America’s leadership has made decisions that run counter to the values of this administration and this Department of War, including an embrace of DEl and other social justice, gender-fluid ideological stances. This is unacceptable.”
Scouting America has gradually expanded its membership policies over the past decade.
In 2013, the Boy Scouts of America began allowing openly gay young people to become scouts. Two years later, it ended its ban on openly gay adults serving in leadership roles.
The organisation announced in 2017 that girls would be permitted to join Cub Scouts before later opening its flagship scouting programme to them.
It also began accepting transgender boys into programmes designated for boys.
Those changes represented a significant shift for an organisation that had previously faced widespread criticism over its exclusion of LGBTQ+ people.
The removal of dedicated spaces at the National Jamboree has renewed concerns about whether political and financial pressure could undermine those inclusion efforts.
Supporters of the spaces argue they offered more than symbolic recognition. They provided places where young people from marginalised communities could meet others with similar experiences, access support and feel safer during the large national gathering.
Critics say removing them could leave some scouts feeling isolated, even as Scouting America continues to publicly state that all young people are welcome.
