The State Department has reversed a Biden-era font change that aimed to make its paperwork more accessible to readers with disabilities.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio directed diplomats around the world to switch from Calibri to Times New Roman 14-point font in all official documents, starting on Wednesday, the State Department said in a statement to NPR. The difference between the two fonts comes down to a few finishing strokes.
"Whether for internal memoranda, papers prepared for principals, or documents shared externally, consistent formatting strengthens credibility and supports a unified Department identity," the statement said.
Times New Roman had been the State Department's official font for nearly two decades, from 2004 until 2023.
According to the Associated Press, Rubio said in a cable sent to U.S. embassies and consulates that the 2023 change, implemented by then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken, was part of misguided diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
Calibri is a sans serif font, meaning it doesn't have the decorative tops and tails at the ends of letters that serif fonts like Times New Roman do.
Those little flourishes can make the lettering harder to read, says Kristen Shinohara, who leads the Center for Accessibility and Inclusion Research at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
"This impact can be more severe for people with learning or reading disabilities like dyslexia or for people with low vision," she told NPR's Morning Edition.
The Americans with Disabilities Act requires sans-serif fonts on physical signage and display screens because of their relative legibility. At the same time, serif fonts like Times New Roman remain the norm in print newspapers, books, legal documents and more.
"Times New Roman specifically, and serif fonts generally, are more formal and professional," the State Department statement said. It did not respond to NPR's questions about reduced accessibility.
Times New Roman was designed specifically for the British newspaper The Times in the 1920s and quickly became the favored typeface for many other publications. It was also the default font of Microsoft programs like Word beginning in the 1990s until it was replaced by Calibri — which was designed with screens in mind — in 2007.
Microsoft replaced Calibri with a sans-serif font called Aptos in 2023. The company wrote in a blog post at the time that Aptos' designer, Steve Matteson, wanted the font to have "the universal appeal of the late NPR newscaster Carl Kasell and the astute tone of The Late Show host Stephen Colbert."
Small lettering, bigger patterns
Rubio's memo describes the 2023 change to Calibri as "another wasteful DEIA program" and says it did not lead to a meaningful reduction in the department's accessibility-based document remediation cases, according to copies obtained by Reuters and The Associated Press.
The Trump administration has made no secret of its disdain for its predecessor's focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.
Trump has issued numerous executive orders dismantling DEI initiatives in federal agencies, the foreign service, federal contracts and more. His administration put pressure on universities and public schools, threatening to withhold federal funding from those that have DEI programs, though a judge struck down some of those efforts in August. And growing anti-DEI backlash has also resulted in scores of private companies scaling back their own such initiatives.
During his tenure at the State Department, Rubio has already abolished offices and initiatives meant to foster inclusion and diversity, both in D.C. and abroad.
The State Department statement says the return to Times New Roman better aligns with Trump's "One Voice for America's Foreign Relations" directive from February, by underscoring its "responsibility to present a unified, professional voice in all communications."
It also fits into the Trump administration's broader fixation on aesthetics, from his gilded Oval Office redesign to his proposal of a classically-styled D.C. arch to mark the nation's 250th birthday to his August executive order mandating that new federal buildings prioritize classical and traditional architectural styles.
And well before the Trump administration started specifying federal agencies' fonts, it was restricting the words they could use.
The Health and Human Services Department removed entire webpages devoted to topics like LGBTQ health and HIV, while the Department of Energy instructed employees to avoid using terms including "climate change" and "sustainable." Just this week, court filings emerged showing the administration's six-page list of words the federal Head Start programs cannot use, including "disability," "race" and "women."
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