The Boy Scouts of America are better off without Chicagoans Ray Baker and Deneen Robinson.

Baker and Robinson were fired this week for refusing to join a mandatory training program because they believe it has racist elements.

One element is a wooden-bead necklace. It is given to the trainees during weekend leadership and outdoor skills. Everyone wears them because the course is a replica of the one Boy Scout founder Robert Baden-Powell held more than 80 years ago.

The pair believe the beads are racist because one story explains Powell took them from a dead African girl and not—as one story goes—captured them from a tribal leader during the Boer War. Neither story can be verified.

Baker and Robinson should be congratulated for believing in something so wholeheartedly they would give up their livelihood.

However, making an issue over something as insignificant as two pieces of woodchips that might or might not have been taken in a proper manner ages ago is ridiculous.

Today the symbols represent different things. Today they are symbols to people helping millions of boys around the globe get a good start. Nobody is sure what the items stood for at the time because nobody really knows how the beads were taken—if at all.

So the pair ultimately only hurt the boys and didn’t help fight racism.