The secretary of state called it a “wasteful” diversity move, according to an internal department cable seen by Reuters.
Humeyra Pamuk
Dec 9, 2025
WASHINGTON, Dec 9 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday ordered diplomats to return to using Times New Roman font in official communications, calling his predecessor Antony Blinken’s decision to adopt Calibri a “wasteful” diversity move, according to an internal department cable seen by Reuters.
The department under Blinken in early January 2023 had switched to Calibri, a modern sans-serif font, saying this was a more accessible font for people with disabilities because it did not have the decorative angular features and was the default in Microsoft products.
A cable dated December 9 sent to all U.S. diplomatic posts said that typography shapes the professionalism of an official document and Calibri is informal compared to serif typefaces.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/rubio-font-times-new-roman-calibri_n_6938c4e6e4b0fc6751e2aa6c
I apologize for posting from this source.
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Font Wars: Times New Roman vs. Calibri in U.S. Diplomacy
The U.S. State Department has reverted to using Times New Roman in official communications, reversing the previous administration’s choice of Calibri, which was promoted for accessibility . This decision aligns with conservative views rejecting diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives as wasteful and contrary to merit-based principles.
Devdiscourse News Desk | 10-12-2025
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This is the dumbest shit.
I had to read too much of it to be sure it wasn’t satire.
I hate both of them as fonts. Times New Roman is too… ugh. And Calibri is the default in Office, soooo… hard to imagine that much thought went into choosing it. IMO I’ve always found it too friendly? Being the default, I’ve seen a million random things use it which makes it hard to take seriously. I’m realizing I think about fonts more than I thought.
TL;DR: If you have to have an official font, just use the Noto family. Every language under the sun, clean, serif or sans, easy peasy.
You mean the trump administration is not changing to Comic Sans??? Every clown car should use Comic Sans.
Anyone who has ever digitized an old, degraded paper document wants you to use a non-serif font. Large language models have helped the process considerably because they can infer words from context but they aren’t perfect and make mistakes.
I don’t remember the font being changed for DEI reasons. I remember them leaving Times New Roman because some high schooler went viral with math that showed how much ink would be saved by using a sans serif font.
edit: Did some digging. It was the DOD that switched to Arial ~2013.
It says it was for greater accessibility, which I took to mean, for people with vision problems, Calibri is apparently designed to be more readable. It’s another attack against the vulnerable. What’s next? Banning Braille? The bumps make toxically insecure boys feel inadequate…
