The Boy Scouts of America will begin to distribute compensation to thousands of victims of sexual abuse after emerging from bankruptcy Wednesday, the organization announced.
As part of a settlement with more than 82,000 survivors of abuse, the BSA will pay out $2.4 billion from a Victims Compensation Trust that was established by the court during its bankruptcy reorganization.
“This is a significant milestone for the BSA as we emerge from a three-year financial restructuring process with a global resolution approved with overwhelming support of more than 85% of the survivors involved in the case,” Chief Scout Executive, President and CEO Roger Mosby said in a statement.
“Our hope is that our Plan of Reorganization will bring some measure of peace to survivors of past abuse in Scouting, whose bravery, patience and willingness to share their experiences has moved us beyond words,” Mosby added.
The youth organization filed for bankruptcy in February 2020, when it was facing hundreds of sexual abuse lawsuits involving thousands of alleged abuse survivors. In September 2022, a judge in Delaware federal bankruptcy court granted final approval for the confirmation of a reorganization plan.
“These boys – now men – seek and deserve compensation for the sexual abuse they suffered years ago,” Chief Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein wrote in an order last year. “Abuse which has had a profound effect on their lives and for which no compensation will ever be enough. They also seek to ensure that to the extent BSA survives, there is an environment where sexual abuse can never again thrive or be hidden from view.”
The co-founder of the Coalition of Abused Scouts for Justice, a group including more than two dozen law firms representing more than 70,000 of the claimants, said it was the largest sexual abuse settlement fund in history.
Coalition co-founder and attorney Adam Slater also commended the court for “bringing survivors one step closer to justice.”
“After years of protracted bankruptcy proceedings and decades of suffering in silence, tens of thousands of survivors of childhood sexual assault will now receive some tangible measure of justice. With this decision, the Plan will now become effective, and the Trust will be able to begin distribution of the historic $2.45B settlement fund,” Slater said.
“Even more important, it means that the safety measures and protections for current and future Scouts included in the Plan will also be put into place – and we know that for many survivors, this has been the highest priority,” Slater added.
The Boy Scouts of America have since enacted a number of protocols to “act as barriers to abuse.”
The protocols include mandatory youth protection training for volunteers and employees, a screening process that includes criminal background checks for new adult leaders and staff, and a policy requiring at least two youth-protection trained adults to be present with youth at all times during scouting activities.
The policy also bans one-on-one situations where adults would have any interaction alone with children.
harold_frederick on April 20th, 2023 at 13:29 UTC »
I honestly loved my time with the scouts. I got to go camping with some of my best friends and learn alot of fun things about survival. That being said, our Boy Scout leader’s oldest son once convinced me and a bunch of the others to moon him so he could take a photo on his “dad’s“ camera and our leader would be surprised when he turned it on.
Found out years later that same boy would end up molesting a young girl in the neighborhood and it made me realize those pictures were probably for the son.
animatedrouge2 on April 20th, 2023 at 13:08 UTC »
I was a Boy Scout and stuck with it until I became an Eagle Scout. I respected the hell of the program as a whole. As I began to learn of the truth of the program, I felt and still feel torn and disillusioned. I know an old scout leader of mine now lives in Mexico after being on the run due to peeping Tom laws and was really heavily implied to have assaulted some boys.
It’s surprising to realize that the founder, Robert Baden-Powell, was also a complete creep and a bastard who preyed on children. Remember that there are some really good teachings in the program that shaped me into the empathetic and well adjusted man I am now, but it was and has always been rotten to the core
Kolipe on April 20th, 2023 at 12:29 UTC »
I was a boy scout. In fact I'm an eagle scout. My troop leader never married and had no kids so you'd be suspicious of him but he was the single greatest role model I had in my life.
He was a former army ranger and a Renaissance man of sorts. He taught me how to field dress a deer and how to disassemble and reassemble an AK 47 while blindfolded at 14 years old. He hammered gun safety into us. Taught us a lot of survival skills. Hell, he taught me how to drive. I went from some nerdy indoor kid to someone who could survive two weeks in the woods alone on our famous "survival camps." I learned a lot of valuable life skills that my parents simply couldn't or wouldn't teach.
I feel for the kids preyed upon. Nobody deserves that when you're looking for a positive influence on your life.