The War on Woke has come for fonts. I did not know this was a thing until today. As it turns out, there’s a woke font and a non-woke font. The woke font: Calibri. The “return to tradition” MAGA font: Times New Roman. Yeah, so full disclosure: I use Times New Roman when I’m writing. I change all of my personal Google Docs to TNR because it’s easier for me to write and read for some reason, likely because I’m old and simply used to it. I don’t care for most of the “modern fonts” either. It’s never occurred to me that there is a woke font choice and that I haven’t chosen it. Well, Marco Rubio has just ordered the State Department to switch back to TNR after Biden’s Secretary of State Anthony Blinken ordered the use of “woke font” Calibri in 2023.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio waded into the surprisingly fraught politics of typefaces on Tuesday with an order halting the State Department’s official use of Calibri, reversing a 2023 Biden-era directive that Mr. Rubio called a “wasteful” sop to diversity.
While mostly framed as a matter of clarity and formality in presentation, Mr. Rubio’s directive to all diplomatic posts around the world blamed “radical” diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs for what he said was a misguided and ineffective switch from the serif typeface Times New Roman to sans serif Calibri in official department paperwork.
In an “Action Request” memo obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Rubio said that switching back to the use of Times New Roman would “restore decorum and professionalism to the department’s written work.” Calibri is “informal” when compared to serif typefaces like Times New Roman, the order said, and “clashes” with the department’s official letterhead.
A State Department official confirmed the document’s authenticity. Mr. Rubio’s directive, under the subject line “Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper,” served as the latest attempt by the Trump administration to stamp out remnants of diversity initiatives across the federal government.
Then-Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken ordered the 2023 typeface shift on the recommendation of the State Department’s office of diversity and inclusion, which Mr. Rubio has since abolished. The change was meant to improve accessibility for readers with disabilities, such as low vision and dyslexia, and people who use assistive technologies, such as screen readers. Calibri, sometimes described as soft and modern, is typically considered more accessible for people with reading challenges thanks to its simpler shapes and wider spacing, which make its letters easier to distinguish. Mr. Blinken’s move was applauded by accessibility advocates.
But Mr. Rubio’s order rejected the grounds for the switch. The change, he allowed, “was not among the department’s most illegal, immoral, radical or wasteful instances of D.E.I.A.,” the acronym for diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. But Mr. Rubio called it a failure by its own standards, saying that “accessibility-based document remediation cases” at the department had not declined.
“Switching to Calibri achieved nothing except the degradation of the department’s official correspondence,” Mr. Rubio said. He noted that Times New Roman had been the department’s official typeface for nearly 20 years until the 2023 change. (Before 2004, the State Department used Courier New.)
Calibri is just a “lighter” version of Arial, and I hate Arial. Not enough to order everyone to use TNR, but I’m not in charge of anything and I’m not about to throw a sh-tfit about fonts in an interdepartmental memo. While I absolutely believe that Rubio is a dumbass, I actually understand why the Sec. of State would order all department communications to have the same font, for consistency and professionalism. I also think that official communications probably “look” better in Times New Roman. But I didn’t know that about Blinken and how Calibri was recommended by accessibility advocates. That’s interesting! (Okay, now I’m looking up what the Nazi font was called – in case you’re wondering too, it’s called Fraktur, and its cousin font is Tannenberg. How long before this administration orders the use of Tannenberg for all comms?)
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.
