SilverPalm

As an Eagle Scout who did not suffer the impacts of CSA in Scouting, and who has not had to live with that trauma since childhood, I have chosen to stop participating in these threads. I'm not sure I really have any right to do so, not when they have become such an excellent resource for survivors to connect with and support one another. I would just like to say that I am pleased that these threads have become a rallying point for survivors. I will once more bow out, but I will continue to read. From one former Scout to all you others, I hope a little good has come from all this evil. I hope you no longer feel so alone. And I hope you know that many of us are standing with you 100%, supporting any decision you feel is best for you when the time comes to vote.

Is the understanding, in general, that this plan will likely be accepted? If not, why all the hullabaloo from the media? What makes this different from the prior proposed plans if people are still going to vote against this one?

News outlets are reporting that a settlement has been reached after last night's announcement. Is that true? Has this $850M plan already been accepted?

Your comment makes a lot of sense. If survivors are satisfied with the transaction, viewing it as payment for services rendered, who am I to argue?

Once again, I'm a day late to reply. Apologies in advance for the tardiness. I think this is where many of us are coming from. Reading the eloquent posts from several of the victims here illustrates the point even further - why should a legal firm expect to take 40% of the compensation offered by the BSA to victims and survivors? Many of these men have suffered for decades, and have pointed out that the abuse they suffered has severely impacted their lives. Careers folding, earning potentials shattered, families wounded by fathers who simply cannot be all they want to be... of course the BSA needs to pay out. And it needs to be enough to hurt the BSA. Because these men, these former Scouts have been hurting ever since they were children. Is any amount of money enough to assuage that? I think I speak for many when I say that it is good and right that the BSA lives up to its promises and does everything in its power to, if not make this right, then at least make it less wrong, should such a thing be possible. I, however, fail to understand how a legal firm should be entitled to taking a third or four tenths or half of the award simply by virtue of having the knowledge of navigating the legal world. Yes, I understand they are making and have made this settlement possible in the first place. But if the BSA pays out a billion dollars, why should the survivors have to split up only a little better than half of that? Is having a legal degree really worth $400 million? Wouldn't that money be better off with the victims, the ones who actually had to live with this pain? These lawyers didn't suffer the indignities and the pain of the assaults. They didn't then go on to live shattered lives, to watch their potential earnings shrink, to watch their families grow distant because of this ever-present gulf they simply couldn't understand... they answered the phone, did some paperwork, and spent a year in court. Right? Is that worth taking all this money from the victims? This is not intended as a criticism of the victims, nor of their right to legal representation. Far from it. If I had my way, these folks would have the finest representation available to them. That said, the sheer magnitude of the potential windfall for these legal firms is an embarrassment, especially considering that every dollar they take is a dollar not going to the victims. I'm not a member of the legal profession. I do not know what's typical in cases like this, or fair, or whether those two ideas even align. But I do know that it feels wrong for legal firms to be taking 30 or 40% of the money that the BSA is presenting in an effort to set right the wrongs of the past... it sure seems that way to me. That's all. I think lawyers are providing a valuable service in giving voice to the voiceless... but taking such a significant chunk of the settlement money just smacks of indecency to me. I think that's where the "(deleted) lawyer" comments are coming from. The victims should be compensated. The lawyers should be paid for their work. But how much is really fair? How much is even appropriate? I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't even be commenting on this. I'm an outsider. I'm just not sure that taking 40% of the settlement money is really the best way to help make survivors whole.

He just means the topic will always be visible at the top of the forum, and new posts won't bump it down. Matt, I do think that'd be a good idea. I think that the survivors should have a resource like this on here, where they can at least come and speak with one another. It might well help them heal.

Look, if we're not willing to spend a couple hours a year to help reduce the incidence of child rape, then the organization doesn't need to survive. That's a tiny price to pay to save someone a lifetime of hurt. This wouldn't even be a big deal. Set up a Saturday morning session in person or whatever. If folks aren't willing to set aside two or four hours on a Saturday to help solve this problem, then maybe they don't need to set aside their Monday nights to come to Scout meetings either. It astonishes me that people complain about something as important as YPT, considering how little time it requires in its current incarnation.

Even if YPT was objectively the finest youth protection program offered anywhere in the world, that doesn't mean it can't be better. There are no downsides to working to improve YPT. None. But if one kid gets spared because one more adult leader recognizes a bad situation developing and does something to stop it as a result of the improved training, then it would have been worth it. I'm surprised BSA doesn't see this. Even if we surrender the contention that their program is the best in the world bar none end of story... that doesn't mean it can't be better. This is a really easy, relatively painless ask from the TCC that doesn't involve selling camps or depriving future scouts of so much as a neckerchief slide. Why on earth don't they address it?

If we can return to the Century whistleblower for a moment: Wouldn't it be reasonable to pare down these supposed false claims now? While the point was raised earlier that that wouldn't end up changing the lump sum of the settlement, it would impact the amount of award to each survivor. The numerator doesn't change, but if the denominator gets smaller, you're left with a bigger award per survivor. Isn't it in the best interests of both sides to weed out these allegedly false claims as soon as possible?

Oh, I didn't realize this either. I think it speaks volumes to the respect we hold for your work reviewing these documents that many of us did believe you were a lawyer.

I do not think that those of us lucky enough not to have been abused are experiencing the same degree of distress over this case as those who were abused. No matter what Scouting means to us, no matter how much we look fondly back on our time in the Scours, no matter how much we hope it will still be there in ten years, the fact remains that our sorrow over the loss of the program is not as life-shatteringly impactful as reliving this abuse must be for survivors. They've lived with this for years, decades, or lifetimes. They've turned to drink to dull their pain. Many are in prison. Many, surely, are dead, unable to move beyond the abuse that destroyed them. Even the very best and luckiest of them have likely had trouble holding down jobs and maintaining healthy family relationships. Comparing our sadness over the loss of the program to, well, that... is inappropriate. We will move on. If BSA isn't there when my kids are ready for Scouts, they'll join the GSUSA or whatever else is out there. We will move on. We will survive. Many of the survivors cannot and could not do the same. It's important that we don't lose sight of that.

Don't forget that Millennials are (still) the largest generation to enter the workforce. Some of us only did that a handful of years ago. I've been married for a few years now, and my wife and I are just expecting our firstborn this fall. I joined this forum in large part because I now wish to re-involve myself in Scouts to help pave the way for my kid(s) to enjoy the program. I was a young Eagle, and I aged out in 2009. I've been gone 12 years, and I'm coming back now - and I'm one of the first of my friends to have a kid on the way. Don't count Millennials out yet. I'm toward the back half of the generation, but the older Millennials got dealt a pretty bad hand by getting smacked with the 2008 recession in the first part of their careers and now the pandemic when they were trying to start families. We're further behind than generations that came up during the postwar prosperity boom, true enough, but that was just the hand we were dealt. Give us a few years; we're getting there.

I guess that I don't see a group of statues as key to Scouting's mission. That might matter to the donors, so there might be some political benefit to having them, but kids at camps don't care who the donors are/were.

In truth, I have no real idea what Summit is now or what it is intended to be. What about Summit is so integral to the Scouting experience that the BSA is willing to risk the very survival of the program over it? What does Summit have that the other HABs do not, that the local camps do not? And, frankly, I'm not on the East Coast, which might also bias me toward keeping the sites which are geographically closer to me. There is already one HA base on the East Coast, one near the West, and one in the extreme upper Midwest. Ditching these traditional HAB to save the new one on the East Coast just smacks of coastal elitism to me... not everyone wants to live in New York or Boston, despite where National is located. It seems a poor calculus to me to lose three bases spread across the country to save one on the extreme end of the country, but that's just my opinion. I honestly don't know why Summit exists at all - we've done just fine with Jamborees at existing campsites. If National's plan is to dump those local camps and force Scouts to make a pilgrimage to the East Coast for services they currently have locally (even if those services might be flashier or prettier out East), I do have a problem with that.

It also seems like selling Summit is the obvious solution to everyone not at National... which, perhaps, explains the delay in providing documents. Purely speculation on my part, of course, but I would guess these documents do not support BSA National's argument that Summit is totally underwater. I would sell Summit in a heartbeat if it meant we could keep Philmont, Northern Tier, Seabase, or any arrangement of the above, and I imagine many other Scouters would do the same. I also believe National knows this. But for some reason, some folks at National are digging in to save Summit, full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes. Presenting documents that show that it is indeed possible to sell Summit when many on both sides want that to happen would make everyone happy... except for National. This might be why we haven't seen any documents at all. If they had documents that proved Summit was indeed underwater, they'd have presented those documents already. /speculation I'm sorry that this turned out to be our first interaction on these boards. I've read a lot of your posts, and I respect your passion for the program as well as your sense of justice. I'm a little surprised you would make this comment, considering that I've spoken at length elsewhere about how important I feel it is that Scouting does the right thing for the survivors. I certainly do not intend to victim blame, and I think the term might have been misapplied here. All I said was that the BSA was paying continual legal bills without having anything to show for it - I didn't apply a virtue statement to that, nor did I suggest it was any of the victims' fault. I'm a proponent of taking responsibility for things I've done, both good and bad. I owe that sense of moral responsibility in large part to Scouting. And I expect Scouting to, for lack of a better phrase, put their money where their mouth (or handbook) is. If Scouting wants to hold the moral high ground, they need to be worthy of it, and that means doing the right thing and putting right the wrongs of the past. They hurt kids. Those kids deserved better. Scouting has a duty to do everything they can to right those wrongs as much as they can, even if that hurts the program. Someone else - maybe even you, Cynical - raised a good point earlier. If we have to sell camps to make up the difference, so be it. It just so happens that we're the ones who have to do it. If these wrongs were made right forty or fifty or sixty years ago, we still wouldn't have those camps - we just wouldn't know about them in the first place.