Deirdre Shesgreen

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Well, this isn't going to help Betsy DeVos, Trump's controversial new Education secretary, win any new fans.





The Department of Education on Sunday tweeted a quote about the importance of education from the late W.E.B. Du Bois, the revered historian and civil rights activist who helped found the NAACP.

But the effort to highlight Du Bois’ famous words backfired—because whoever sent the Tweet misspelled Du Bois’ name, as "DeBois."

The response was ruthless, with Twitter followers of the agency lampooning the misspelling.

The Senate narrowly confirmed DeVos last week despite a firestorm of complaints about her nomination. The billionaire philanthropist is best known as a vocal advocate for charter schools and vouchers, which critics see as a way to undermine public education.

She had a rocky confirmation hearing, during which she seemed to not be familiar with critical education issues, such as the federal Individuals with Disabilities Act.

Several hours after the first Tweet was posted, the Education Department re-posted the message with the correct spelling and apologized for the mistake. But the apology included another mistake, this time a grammatical error.

"Our deepest apologizes for the earlier typo," the department tweeted.