When it comes to genuine crises, the elites are usually the last to know. “We know that some of the most dangerous ideas in society usually come out of academia, usually from the Ivy Leagues,” Vanderbilt professor Carol M. Swain said at a conference at the Family Research Council on December 15, 2010.

Swain herself is a Yale grad. She noted that academics attacked the Moynihan report more than 40 years ago in which future U. S. senator and former professor Daniel Patrick Moynihan concluded that the increasing rates of out of wedlock births among blacks portended a societal crisis of mammoth proportions. It was published by the U. S. Department of Labor and entitled The Negro Family: The Case For National Action.

“The evidence — not final, but powerfully persuasive — is that the Negro family in the urban ghettos is crumbling,” the report concluded. “A middle class group has managed to save itself, but for vast numbers of the unskilled, poorly educated city working class the fabric of conventional social relationships has all but disintegrated.”

“There are indications that the situation may have been arrested in the past few years, but the general post war trend is unmistakable. So long as this situation persists, the cycle of poverty and disadvantage will continue to repeat itself.”

“In 1970, 68 percent of black families were intact,” Swain, who came from one of them, notes. Currently, “Only 17 percent of African-American youth—less than one in five—live with both married parents,” the Marriage & Religion Institute found.

“It shouldn’t be a room full of white people talking about the problem,” Swain argues. “It should be our black president.”

“It should be the Congressional Black Caucus. It should be the NAACP.” Swain teaches law and politics at Vanderbilt.

Additionally, Swain noted:

o   “Black babies are the most likely to be aborted, whether their parents are married or not”

o   “Blacks are most likely to get HIV through heterosexual sex” and

o   “Unemployment among blacks is at levels comparable to the Great Depression.”

In connection with the last of these, Swain points out, black elites ignore “the impact of illegal immigration on blacks.” They “pretend that the problem is that we need amnesty for illegal aliens.”

“When blacks apply for work they face a preference for cheap surplus labor,” Swain argues, in the form of “illegal aliens.”

“For some reason, black elites are silent on the extinction of black families,” Swain says.

When I asked her how many academics share her views, she said, “There would be very few.”

“Well, you know what, academics are cowards. There might be more but they would be afraid to say it.”

Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.

If you would like to comment on this article, e-mail mal.kline@academia.org