Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a memo on Tuesday ordering everyone at the U.S. State Department to use Times New Roman for all official government documents, according to the New York Times. What’s behind Rubio’s sudden obsession with fonts? The Secretary thinks the current typeface being used, Calibri, is too woke.
Rubio’s memo was titled “Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper,” according to the Times and Reuters, which obtained a copy of the memo.
“To restore decorum and professionalism to the Department’s written work products and abolish yet another wasteful DEIA program, the Department is returning to Times New Roman as its standard typeface,” the cable said.
DEIA stands for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility. And it’s that last part about accessibility that was important when the State Department first switched to the typeface Calibri in January 2023 under President Joe Biden. Sans-serif fonts like Calibri are easier for people with some visual disabilities to read. Screen readers that use optical character recognition (OCR) and text-to-speech are also able to better process sans-serif fonts.
Calibri was Microsoft Office’s default font until the summer of 2023, when Microsoft released Aptos. While the company made the switch only six months after the State Department had decided to make Calibri its commonly used typeface, Aptos is also a sans-serif font and more accessible to those with visual disabilities.
The community over at r/typography had plenty of jokes about the new order, including “There’s a new serif in town…” and “tariff the serif.” Another commenter responded, “kerny joke.”
Rubio and other members of the Trump administration have been tasked with purging anything considered “DEI” within government. That effort is obviously part of President Donald Trump’s broader mission of making the U.S. more white and preferencing men as well as able-bodied people over anyone else.
“This formatting standard aligns with the President’s One Voice for America’s Foreign Relations directive, underscoring the Department’s responsibility to present a unified, professional voice in all communications,” the memo said.
Typefaces in government might seem like a distraction, dismissed as one of those “culture war” issues. But ordering a return to the use of Times New Roman is all part of the larger MAGA project. The goal is to alienate and expel any out-groups who may be hostile to a neo-fascist agenda.
Trump refused to acknowledge World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, the first time since 1988. The president has dropped Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a free admission day at the national parks, instead replacing it with his birthday in June. Piece by piece, Trump seeks to remake the U.S. into a more authoritarian and less inclusive place. And the switch away from Calibri might seem like small potatoes, but it’s a clear fuck-you to anyone who hasn’t jumped aboard the MAGA train.
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