January 27, 2000 | Read Time: 2 minutes
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether the Boy Scouts of America may continue its policy of excluding homosexuals.
The justices this month said they will review a ruling by the Supreme Court of New Jersey that held that the charity violated the state’s antidiscrimination law when it expelled James Dale, an Eagle Scout, in 1990 after learning that he was a homosexual (The Chronicle, August 26, 1999).
Gregg Shields, national spokesman for the Boy Scouts, said the charity hopes that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision, which is expected by July, will resolve the broader issue of whether the group is a private organization or, as the New Jersey Court found, a “public accommodation” — meaning that it must be accessible to all. Such a ruling, he said, could affect court decisions and lawsuits pending in numerous states.
“The question is, Do the Boy Scouts, as a private organization, have the right to establish standards of leadership for our membership?” Mr. Shields said.
The New Jersey court last year rejected the Scouts’ argument that it is a private organization and that its decision to expel Mr. Dale was protected by the First Amendment rights of freedom of association and freedom of expression.
Instead, the state court found that the Boy Scouts is a “place of public accommodation,” in part because Congress had chartered the organization, and also because government agencies such as police and fire departments routinely sponsor local troops.
In filing their appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court, lawyers for the Boy Scouts said the New Jersey ruling “endangers important constitutional principles of freedom of speech and freedom of association.”
The national organization has faced other challenges in the last two decades for, among other things, its requirement that members profess a belief in God and for its refusal to admit girls as Scouts.
New Jersey is the only state whose Supreme Court has ruled against the Boy Scouts’ claim that it is a private organization. State Supreme Courts in California, Connecticut, Kansas, and Oregon have all ruled in favor of the Boy Scouts.
