Betsy DeVos’ Education Department marks NAACP founding by misspelling W.E.B. Du Bois

By Fusion Staff  |  February 12, 2017 | 5:28pm
Latest

She hasn’t been on the job even a week and already the controversial billionaire Republican Education Secretary Betsy DeVos—who has no previous experience in education policy or teaching—has flunked history class.

On Sunday, the Department of Education tweeted out an inspiring quote by W.E.B. Du Bois—which they probably Googled—to mark the founding of the NAACP on Feb. 12, 1909. Du Bois, a civil rights activist and the first black man to receive a doctorate from Harvard, was a co-founder of the NAACP, and founder of The Crisis, one of the oldest black periodicals in the U.S.

But the Education Department spelled his name “DeBois,” prompting a brutal (and merited) response from several people who probably paid more attention in school.

Painful. Here’s how Twitter reacted:

Update: The Department of Education has finally corrected the error and issued an apology:

 
Join the discussion...