Fact Check: Are Black Women 'The Most Educated Demographic,' as Rep. Jasmine Crockett Claimed?
Controversial Texas Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett has made waves yet again by claiming that the Los Angeles Fire Department’s DEI policies haven’t hindered its ability to respond to wildfires since black women are America’s most educated demographic.
Do those facts line up with the truth, however? Not so much, it seems.
First, the background: As you’re no doubt aware, fires in Southern California have decimated the city of Los Angeles and surrounding communities. As of Friday, at least 11 were dead and over 10,000 homes and other structures had been burned to the ground, according to The Wall Street Journal.
There are a number of angles on what’s hampered the response to this, one of them being clips of the arrant wokeness that seems to have taken hold of the LAFD.
Two clips in particular — one of DEI recruitment and training practices, another of a firefighter explaining that people want to see first responders that look like you and, if female firefighters can’t rescue your husband because they’re not as strong, that your husband shouldn’t have gotten into that problem in the first place — have put the problem into relief on social media.
LA County recently posted this video on how they make their firefighters train in cultural inclusivity, equity, diversity pic.twitter.com/nvB3RRjTQK
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 8, 2025
The scariest part of this woke nonsense is when she admits she’s not strong enough to carry a man out of a fire, but it’s really the man’s fault for being in that situation to begin with.
— Not the Bee (@Not_the_Bee) January 9, 2025
In the midst of all this, Crockett joined a panel discussion on CNN Thursday night which included Republican Scott Jennings, who criticized the LAFD’s policies.
During the discussion, Jennings noted that “you might have recalled a news story from last year, there was some interest in the fire departments and the firefighters in California.”
“And the interest was there were too many white men who were firefighters and we need to have a program in California to make sure we don’t have enough white men as firefighters,” he said.
In response, Crockett claimed that this wasn’t the issue, averring that black women were the most educated group in the country.
“Listen, I am so tired — you know what, there was an article that just came out that said that actually the most educated demographic in this country right now is black women,” she said.
“So, let me be clear: Because you are a woman or because I know that some of the right has been sharing these photos of the fact that, I believe, that the fire chief may be a woman or something, that has nothing to do with it. We are looking at qualifications.”
🚨Scott Jennings triggers Jasmine Crockett into unhinged rant by bringing up DEI in CA:
Jennings: “In California, the interest was whether there were too many white men who were firefighters. And we need to have a program in California to make sure we don’t have enough white men… pic.twitter.com/DQTbqq9klC
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) January 9, 2025
Leaving aside the fact that educational attainment doesn’t necessarily make one a great firefighter — is she correct here?
In terms of the “article that just came out” which made this claim, the best we could find was a ThoughtCo. article published in September which said this: “The claim that Black women are the most educated demographic in America comes from a 2014 study that cites the percentage of Black women enrolled in college in relation to their other race-gender groups.”
“Considering enrollment alone gives an incomplete picture. Black women are also starting to outpace other groups in earning degrees,” the article added. “For example, although Black women only make up 12.7% of the female population in the country, they consistently make up over 50% of the number of Black people who receive postsecondary degrees.”
Note that the article only references a 2014 study, however, and cites a misleading statistic that essentially means black women get more degrees than black men do; this is true across the board in secondary and postsecondary education for women and men, regardless of race. That 2014 study referenced was also by the left-wing Center for American Progress, not exactly an unbiased source.
As for the current state of educational attainment, however, the numbers don’t lie: black women lag behind both white and Asian women, and are roughly equal with white men, depending on what markers you’re using.
According to 2023 data updated last month by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor, 23.2 percent of black women had a bachelor’s degree with 16.0 percent also having an advanced degree.
For white women, that number was 29.1 percent, with 19.1 percent having an advanced degree. Among Asian women, 37.0 percent had a bachelor’s degree, with 30.6 percent having an advanced degree.
Hispanic women trailed among other females, with 19.7 percent having a bachelor’s degree and 9.7 percent having an advanced degree.
Among white men, 26.3 percent had a bachelor’s degree, with 13.6 percent having an advanced degree. A total of 21.0 percent of black men had a bachelor’s, with another 10.9 percent having an advanced degree.
According to U.S. Census data estimates, moreover, 58.4 percent of Americans are white alone, not Hispanic or Latino. Black Alone made up 13.7 percent.
It’s difficult to tell where Crockett was pulling her statistics from, in other words, but those numbers were pretty likely wrong.
Perhaps those numbers will change in the next few years — the Bureau of Labor Statistics only counts educational attainment of those 25 or older and in the workforce, and perhaps DEI measures at universities have boosted those numbers in the interim with “race-conscious admissions” programs — but those have also been struck down by the Supreme Court.
Thus, it’s worth noting that Crockett may be correct in some narrow measure of younger graduates, but without her actually citing her sources for this claim, it doesn’t compute. We rate this as inconclusive given the broadness of her claim — but all the measurable statistics point away from her conclusion.
Then again, it’s once more worth noting that educational attainment is not entirely necessary to become a firefighter beyond the capacity to do basic math — something that departments generally test for and the current Biden administration has been trying to fight as discriminatory.
It’s unclear where the Democrats draw the line in terms of educational discrimination, therefore, but one thing’s for certain: Crockett’s claim simply doesn’t hold water as a blanket statement.
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