Moral dilemmas in ACORN
Angela Harris

Bryant & Stratton College

ENG305: Advanced Research & Writing

Professor Nelson

March 29, 2010

Moral Dilemmas in ACORN

What is the definition of ethics? The meaning of "ethics" is hard to pin down, and the
Views people have about ethics are varies. Many people tend to equate ethics with their feelings, but being ethical is clearly not a matter of following one's feelings. A person following his or her feelings may recoil from doing what is right. In fact, feelings frequently deviate from what is ethical. Ethics refers to standards of conduct, standards that indicate how one should behave based on moral duties and virtues, which themselves are derived from principles of right and wrong. In order to apply this definition to practical decision making, it is necessary to specify the nature of the moral obligations considered intrinsic to ethical behavior. There are two aspects of ethics. The first aspect involves the ability to discern right from wrong and good from evil. The second involves the commitment to do what is right, good and proper. Ethics is an action concept; it is to not simply an idea think and argues about. The choices we make in life are directly influenced by our values, what we believe to be good, just, or truthful. Personal beliefs such as those listed above directly influence our actions. Consequently, our values are closely related to our morals, or what we do. The study of ethics involves both values and morals. The terms morals and ethics are often used together or one in lieu of the other, but a distinction should be maintained between the two. Whereas morals refer to what we actually do or how we act, ethics has more to do with what we should to do or how we should act. ACORN which is short for Association of community organizations for Reform Now is the nation's largest community organization of low-and moderate-income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities. Some of the company’s accomplishments include successful campaigns for better housing, schools, neighborhood safety, health care, job conditions. ACORN is one company where many of its employees failed to follow any code of ethics whether it is from the business or personal aspect. ACORN was founded in 1970 in Little Rock Arkansas by Wade Rathke, who worked for the National Welfare Rights Organization in Missouri. Rathke wanted to start a group that worked with the entire community, not just welfare recipients. The organization describes itself as a non-profit, non-partisan social justice organization. Its mission was to help people obtain clothing and furniture; it campaigned for schools to provide healthy, affordable lunches and promoted Vietnam Veterans' rights. Since then the organization has branched out into housing and workers' rights advocacy; it has helped hundreds of thousands of working-class and poor citizens obtain home loans, register to vote and fight for better wages (Suddath, C. 2008). ACORN works in more than 100 U.S cities; it has national headquarters in New York, New Orleans and Washington, D.C. After 34 years of successfully building power for low and moderate-income, the organization decided it was time to go international in chapters in Canada, Argentina, Mexico, Peru and India to improve housing conditions for the economically disadvantaged, including increased community safety, secure living wages and improved quality of local schools. ACORN’s future goals include helping to strengthen democratic movements for social change abroad, while continuing our efforts building power for immigrant communities in the United States. ACORN has been involved in politics since 1972, when it endorsed two of its members running for the Little Rock School Board. Over the next few years, the group expanded its ambitions beyond Arkansas, opening its first multi-state offices in Texas and South Dakota and into national politics. Aside from ACORN’s many accomplishments, it has had its fair share of controversial/ethics issues. On Oct. 7, Nevada authorities raided the Las Vegas offices of ACORN on allegations that the group submitted fraudulent voter registration cards, featuring nonexistent addresses, duplicate applicants and in at least some cases, the names of the Dallas Cowboys football team. The organization was also accused of forcing banks to issue risky home loans, the same types of loans that caused the financial crisis we're in today.

Throughout the recent presidential election, John McCain released an ad linking current president Barack Obama. Officials in Indiana gave up counting after realizing the first 2100 registration forms they looked at were fraudulent. A report out of Ohio noting another 4000 suspect forms from the, ahem, left-leaning group. Investigators probing ACORN have learned that an Ohio man registered to vote several times and cast a bogus ballot with a fake address, officials said yesterday, as they revealed that nearly 4,000 registration applications supplied by the left-leaning activist group were suspect. ACORN's registering voters in Ohio was the second out of at least nine states, where officials are investigating similar reports of phony sign-ups by the group. At the same time, officials said, some 5 percent, or 3,650, of the 73,000 total registration cards turned in by ACORN in the Cleveland area from its Project Vote initiative to sign up low-income voters were questionable. (Hofton, J. 2008).

ACORN is still racking up indictments and convictions for voter fraud across the nation. There have been several actual convictions of certain individuals of the organization, mainly in Nevada, Chicago and Cleveland areas. Missouri Also had 12 members of ACORN convicted of voter fraud. ACORN is alleged to be closely tied to President Obama, he having worked for them when he lived in Chicago and they having heavily supported his candidacy. Additionally, former ACORN members have flocked to the Obama administration since his win in November (Huston, T. 2009). More recently, two employees at the Baltimore, Maryland, branch of the liberal community group ACORN were caught on tape allegedly offering advice to a pair posing as a pimp and prostitute on setting up a prostitution ring and evading the IRS, this lead to a nation-wide ACORN investigation. In an undercover investigation, employees of ACORN were secretly videotaped on hidden camera offering to assist two people who pretended to be a prostitute and her pimp. The male pimp is supposedly planning to employ 13 underage illegal immigrant girls from El Salvador in Central America as prostitutes, and wanted to obtain housing where they could continue to run their prostitution business. He was advised by an ACORN employee to list the prostitute’s occupation as a “performance artist” on her tax forms, and claim the children as dependents on their tax returns. This is clearly a blatant support of sex trafficking and tax evasion. This type of advice was given in all but one of ACORN's offices around the United States. (CNN, 2010)

The shocking discovery lead to the termination of over 15 employees in various offices and the credibility of ACORN took the greatest hit, causing the organization to make the crucial decision to close its doors-for good. Following months of relentless attacks by Republicans over the scandals alleging employees handed out illegal advice to a right-wing filmmaker and his colleague, ACORN announced Monday, March 22, 2010, that it will permanently shut its doors.” It’s really declining revenue in the face of a series of attacks from partisan operatives and right-wing activists that have taken away our ability to raise the resources we need," said ACORN spokesman Kevin Whelan. (Leopold, J. 2010)

According to a statement released by the organization, the ACORN Association Board met on Sunday March 21, 2010 and approved a set of steps to responsibly manage the process of bringing its operations to a close over the coming months. These include: Closing ACORN's remaining state affiliates and field offices by April 1, 2010; and Developing a plan to resolve all outstanding debts, obligations and other issues (Leopold, J. 2010). Prior to the recent scandals of selected ACORN members, this organization has a great deal to be proud of, from promoting to home ownership to helping rebuild New Orleans, from raising wages to winning safer streets, from training community leaders to promoting voter participation. ACORN members have worked hard to create stronger to communities, a more inclusive democracy, and a more just nation. It is very sad that a handful of people, who seem to have low moral standards, ruin a very reputable organization. In conclusion, ACORN violated the Contract Ethics Theory involving morality following a set of rules governing how people treat one another. The following principles were violated under this theory: Principle of Opportunity: There must be meaningful equality of opportunity in the competition among individuals for those positions in society that bring greater economic and social rewards. The sole Mission of Acorn was to provide countless opportunities to a selected group of people in our society. Principle of Distributive Justice: Basic goods should be distributed so that the least advantaged members of society are benefited. ACORN helped the least advantaged members of society, tremendously. However, some members of ACORN decided to take it to the next level and advised/assisted illegal acts. Principle of Justice: Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. The rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests. Although justice was served to certain members of this organization for their lack of morality, in the end, the entire organization paid a huge price for their member’s individual actions.