Common meaning:

Something that actually exists

Hidden meaning of the Equity religion: 

Irrelevant unless they match Equity religious beliefs.

Discussion:

Equity teaches that all facts are irrelevant unless they perfectly match the proper Equity beliefs.

From the Equity perspective, facts are not physically real. This seems crazy, but does make sense from the perspective of the Equity religion. After Rousseau, one of the branches of the religion he created eventually became the ideology of postmodernism. It said that everything is subjective and constrained by the perspective of the speaker which means that nothing is objectively real. 

When the latest religious variant of Equity was born it borrowed a lot from postmodernism, including the idea of subjectivity.  This allows believers to completely ignore any facts that oppose their religion and only accept ones that match the faith. Understand it is not that the truth of the facts make the religion true, but that the truth of the religion makes the facts true.

It is important to keep in mind that when you are talking with an Equity believer they are religious radicals who do not believe in facts.