Jasmine Crockett recently repeated a familiar talking point: that black women are the most educated demographic in America. However, this false claim is not supported by the data. Yet it continues to circulate in political discourse because it serves a psychological need rather than an empirical one. According to the Postsecondary National Policy Institute, Asian and white women hold bachelor’s degrees at higher rates than black women. Hence, black women are not the most educated group in the country. The statistic that black women are the most educated relies on selective interpretations of enrollment data among narrow age cohorts. It does not reflect overall degree attainment. But the media and political class refuse to correct this error because they are afraid of offending a powerful voting bloc.

This indulgence does not help black women. It gives them an inflated sense of their own standing. When you tell a group they are the best, they begin to believe it. They begin to expect rewards and recognition that their actual qualifications do not command. This is delusion, rather than empowerment. And delusion is a poor foundation for economic success.

Black women are exceptional only in comparison to black men. Thirty-eight percent of black women hold a college degree. Twenty-six percent of black men hold one. That gap is real. But it is a narrow achievement. Historically, black women have had lower unemployment rates than black men, with 1987 and 1998 being notable exceptions. Outperforming black men is not the same as outperforming the broader population. It is a low bar. Celebrating it as a major victory only obscures how far black women lag behind other groups in income, wealth, and occupational prestige.

Furthermore, the degrees black women earn are not evenly distributed across high-value fields. Black students are less likely to be represented in high-paying STEM majors. Black women disproportionately graduate with degrees in sociology, social work, and health administration services. These credentials do not command the same premiums in the labor market as engineering or computer science. A sociology degree does not make you competitive in a global economy. It makes you dependent on institutions that value compliance over output. The labor market does not reward good intentions. It rewards specialized skills. Black women have fewer of those skills than their Asian and white counterparts. This disparity is reflected in wage data and employment patterns.

Many black women are now furious because the Trump administration is downsizing the federal government and clamping down on DEI initiatives. They see these moves as attacks on their livelihood. They are correct that these policies will cost them jobs. But they are wrong to frame this as an injustice. Working for the government is often an indication that you lack specific skills the market values. Federal employment is a shelter from competition. When that subsidy ends, the protected are exposed.

Furthermore, the public sector is less productive than the private sector. The Bureau of Labor Statistics used to provide productivity metrics for the private sector until this practice was discontinued in 1994. Up until that time, the government consistently trailed private industry. Government work prioritizes process over results and rewards longevity over performance. Black women have been major beneficiaries of this system. They have filled administrative and compliance roles that would not exist in a leaner, more competitive environment. This is not a testament to their talent. It is a testament to their positioning within a bloated bureaucracy.

Similarly, a study by Jason Richwine shows that government workers work three fewer hours per week than private sector employees and one fewer month per year than their private sector counterparts. So, if black women are as talented as their advocates claim, why have they not made the federal government more productive? Why has the administrative state remained sluggish and inefficient despite decades of black female presence in its ranks? The answer is simple. The talent was never there. The narrative was the product of political convenience, not objective performance.

If black women truly possess the extraordinary capabilities attributed to them, they should have no problem optimizing their expertise in the private sector. The private sector rewards results. It does not care about historical grievances. It cares about output. If black women can deliver that output, they will thrive. If they cannot, they will struggle. The current panic over federal layoffs and DEI rollbacks suggests that many black women are not confident in their ability to compete without protective barriers. They should be. But they are not. And that silence speaks louder than any rallying cry.

The truth is uncomfortable. Black women are not the most educated demographic. They have been sheltered by government employment and protected by corporate diversity mandates. Those shelters are now collapsing. Instead of demanding that the world change to accommodate their inflated self-image, black women should ask themselves why they cannot compete in the open market. The answer is not racism. The answer is skill. Or rather, the lack of it. That is the conversation no one wants to have. But it is the only one that matters.

This brings us to the final piece of the puzzle. For some time now, Christopher Rufo has been publishing features exposing black women in academia who commit fraud. Claudine Gay, the former president of Harvard, was forced to resign after Rufo documented extensive plagiarism in her dissertation and other published works. Sherri Charleston, Harvard’s chief diversity officer, faced similar allegations. More recently, Kerri K. Greenidge has retired from her post at Tufts because her book The Grimkes has been exposed as containing fabrications and egregious errors. Probably, if black women are twice as good at achieving anything, perhaps it is academic fraud.

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About Lipton Matthews

Lipton Matthews is a researcher and podcaster. He is a regular contributor to American Greatness. In addition, his work has been featured in Mises, The Federalist, Chronicles, American Thinker, Epoch Times, and other publications. He is also author of Busting African Delusions: Institutions, Human Capital, and the Path to Progress. He can be reached at lo_matthews@yahoo.com.