Department Of Ed Fumbles Apology For Misspelling W.E.B. Du Bois’ Name

Education Secretary-designate Betsy DeVos testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2017, at her confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Education Secretary-designate Betsy DeVos testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2017, at her confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
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The Department of Education apologized on Sunday for misspelling W.E.B. Du Bois’ name in a tweet posted hours earlier — but its apology contained another misspelling.

The Department of Education’s original tweet misspelled the surname of Du Bois—a black historian, sociologist, civil rights activist and co-founder of the NAACP—as “DeBois.” It corrected that spelling in another tweet posted three and a half hours later, but did not delete the original post.

In its subsequent apology, the Department of Education misspelled the word “apologies” as “apologizes.”

The misspelled apology has since been deleted but is still accessible via the Internet Archive.

Twitter was quick to note the irony of the Department of Education falling victim to not one but two misspellings in a row.

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