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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   2127 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 18, 2026

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Via evolving parenthood experience, it's recently come to my attention that the Boy Scouts no longer exist, but rather a co-ed institution called "Scouting America". Boys and girls welcomed equally. No scout troop for males only.

Girl Scouts? Same as it ever was. Girls only.

How is this not a layup discrimination lawsuit? I can't even find any online discourse about it; any attempt to Google the topic simply directs me to the scouts "anti-discrimination" efforts.

edit: I was tragically unaware that Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts are two independent organizations. The naming structure led me to assume that they operated under a common parent organization, and we all know what happens when you assume...

Because these are not government organizations? You can make a girls-only club. You can make an all genders club. If you want an all-boys club, you can make that too.

Yeah I can't think of a single all-boys club, anywhere in the U.S.

Really? Fraternities have been in the news again.

Social outcry is not the same thing as a legal barrier. In my metroplex one of the more prominent country clubs still requires that every member family be headed by a white male. Unions often have similar policies.

In my metroplex one of the more prominent country clubs still requires that every member family be headed by a white male

which one?

Unions often have similar policies.

which ones?

are these explicit policies or de facto ones you think exist looking in from the outside?

It’s called north woods or north haven or something. It was a client of a company I worked for a while back and one of the reasons I was assigned to their campus was because customers could see white people if they needed service while they were open. I was told by my supervisor that they didn’t allow nonwhites to join or women to join on their own.

The longshoreman’s Union may not technically have a ‘whites only’ policy, but it definitely engages in some discrimination to maintain an all-white workforce.

So does the country club have an explicit all-whites policy or you just heard they do this implicitly and secretly from rumor?

both major longshoreman's unions are not all-white; there is a famous history of the federal government using lawfare against these groups to force them to integrate and not exclude based on race and the spectre of that lawfare is ever present

claiming there is a difference between social outcry and "legal barriers" rings hollow when in the context of the last 80 years of federal policy of using the governments at every level to harass and attack groups engaged in behavior which isn't explicitly illegal

In the Pittsburgh area there are plenty of all-white "ethnic" clubs that refuse to admit blacks or even serve them as guests at their clubhouses. If you see something like "French Club", German Club", "Croatian Club", or anything similar is probably whites-only, especially if it isn't affiliated with a national organization. There's one near my that I know members of an I've been offered membership on a couple of occasions but declined. I have been in the bar before to drink, but I'm reluctant to go if invited. As @Lewis2 points out, social censure more than any illegality keeps their membership down, though @Bleep is incorrect in at least this instance as membership isn't a bunch of racist weirdos. It definitely skews older, but membership of all social clubs skews older. It is, in fact, fairly difficult to become a member, as they only admit new members once a year, and you need a member to sponsor you, and they are allegedly selective in that members who pay dues but aren't really active don't have as much pull as people who drink at the bar regularly.

The issue comes in that they don't tell you up front that blacks aren't permitted. This wouldn't be an issue if the prohibition was limited to membership and denial of blacks would be understandable in the context of it being hard to get in anyway. The problem arises when a member brings a guest who is black. They will immediately be refused service and told to leave. I know two people who have made the mistake of bringing a black guest only for both of them to be humiliated and dumbfounded. My uncle was briefly a member and quit when he found out about the policy. He's liberal, but I know MAGA people who refuse to drink there as well for that reason. The old timers who drink there aren't even particularly conservative. One friend of mine excuses it by saying that it's pretty common for private clubs to be whites-only and leaves it at that, and he's pretty down the middle politically.

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