Betsy DeVos has again entered the headlines but for the wrong reasons. Internet trolls blamed President Donald Trump's controversial education secretary for a typo on the department's Twitter feed.
A tweet misspelled the name of the prominent African-American sociologist and historian W.E.B Du Bois.
US Education Department: Error After Error
The Department of Education tweeted a quote highlighting the importance of education from the late W.E.B Du Bois. In an effort to highlight the famous words from the revered civil rights activist, things backfired as the tweet misspelled Du Bois as "DeBois."
The mistake immediately caught the attention of followers, and hundreds of responses came out mocking the misspelling.
The education department by midday tweeted the correct spelling along with an apology. But even that apology earned flak from critics because the subsequent post also included another error, this time a grammatical one. The typo was later fixed.
Amid hundreds of negative comments and posts, the department under DeVos' leadership also received some support albeit from fewer followers.
Later, a spokesman for the education department stated the misspellings were made by a long-time department employee, and ensured the public a new review process would be in place to prevent such errors.
The Journey Of Betsy DeVos So Far
A wealthy political donor, DeVos was confirmed only last week as Trump's pick for the post of education secretary, while the latter was fighting for the travel ban.
DeVos' faced several hurdles in the Senate confirmation process, largely for her support of voucher programs and other alternatives to public education, and to a large extent for purportedly never having taught in a public school.
On her third full day on the job, DeVos was temporarily blocked from entering a District of Columbia public school by protestors.
Despite the firestorm of complaints about the nomination, the Senate narrowly confirmed the billionaire philanthropist.
DeVos had a tough confirmation hearing as she seemed to be unfamiliar with many important education issues, such as the Federal Individual with Disabilities Act. Her critics see the support for vouchers and other public education alternatives as a means to undermine public education.
With citizens concerned about the current socio-political atmosphere as well as the current administration's seeming indifference toward science, the latest incident has not won any favor from the public for the new education secretary.
