By Steve Peoples
Journal State House Bureau

Wade Rathke, co-founder of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is scheduled to speak at Brown University Feb. 9.

Rathke served as ACORN's lead organizer from its founding in 1970 until he stepped down last June, according to the announcement released today by Brown University's Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions.

The former ACORN official will deliver a speech entitled, "Citizen Wealth: Winning the Campaign to Save Working Families," as part of the center's Brown Bag Series scheduled for noon next Tuesday at 67 George Street, Providence.

ACORN has drawn fire from conservatives following a sting by conservative activists who caught ACORN employees in several cities on camera, seeming to give housing advice to a couple who claimed to be involved in prostitution.

Republicans also charged the year before that employees of ACORN falsified voter registrations in Florida.

U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-RI, set off a firestorm of conservative criticism last fall as one of a handful of senators who opposed action to shut off federal housing funds to ACORN. At the time, he argued that allegations against a few employees do not justify a blanket sanction of the organization.