The U.S. Department of Education was fighting off a social media storm Sunday after the agency misspelled the name of W.E.B. Du Bois, an admired civil rights activist and co-founder of the NAACP, in a tweet about the importance of education for Black History month.
The department tweeted out a famous Du Bois quote, “Education must simply not teach work- it must teach life,” but then attributed it to W.E.B. DeBois.
A Twitter backlash quickly followed. The agency corrected the mistake and issued an apology.
“Our deepest apologies for the earlier typo,” the agency tweeted out
Post updated - our deepest apologies for the earlier typo.
— U.S. Department of Education (@usedgov) February 12, 2017
Then it sent out a new tweet with the same quote, but Du Bois spelled correctly. You can still see the tweet on the U.S. Department of Education Twitter page.
The error comes just a few days after new and controversial Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was narrowly confirmed by the Senate, with Vice President Mike Pence casting a tie-breaking vote to get her confirmed.
"In the Days of Loose & Careless Logic, We Must Teach Thinkers to THINK." - William Edward Burghardt DU Bois 👏🏽 https://t.co/3m03Vnt5C1
— NAACP (@NAACP) February 12, 2017
Is it funny sad or sad funny that our Dept. of Education misspelled the name of the great W. E. B. Du Bois? https://t.co/egi6Nn15gp
— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) February 12, 2017
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