Marco Rubio bans Calibri font at State Department for being too DEI 

The Calibri font is the latest authorities idiosyncratic to beryllium fired from the Trump Administration for its relation with diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. 

In an enactment that reads similar a communicative from The Onion (and volition surely beryllium fodder for Saturday Night Live oregon South Park), U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has banned the font and ordered diplomats to usage Times New Roman for authoritative documents instead, the New York Times reported aft obtaining a leaked memo connected the topic. 

Calibri, which is simply a sans-serif font, was seemingly adopted successful 2023 during Biden’s tenure. It was chosen by the department’s then-DEI office, which has since been disbanded nether Rubio amid the Trump administration’s anti-DEI directives. 

The font was chosen successful an effort to marque documents easier to work for the imaginativeness impaired. Sans-serif fonts are those without decorative swirls and lines astatine the ends of letters. With their cleaner lines and somewhat wider missive spacing, they are considered much accessible for radical with issues ranging from dyslexia to low-vision (although probe connected however overmuch the serifs themselves interaction readability has been inconclusive).  

Rubio’s memo has designated Times New Roman arsenic his tenure’s authoritative font, stating it volition “restore decorum and professionalism” to documents. Rubio did admit successful the memo that Calibri wasn’t the “most illegal, immoral, extremist oregon wasteful” illustration of DEI to his mind’s eye, but helium inactive berated the font for contributing to “the degradation” of the State Department’s authoritative correspondence.  

Many radical crossed the governmental spectrum dislike Calibri (according to an informal survey of TechCrunch writers) but each the same, that’s a harsh disapproval for a font. 

Apparently, determination were rumblings wrong the section successful 2023 erstwhile Calibri was archetypal adopted, the Times reported. Font choices animate the aforesaid benignant of love/hate passions arsenic sports teams. Everyone has their favorites and their rivalries. 

While Calibri declined to remark to TechCrunch connected however woke it really was, galore radical would hold that Times New Roman is simply a peculiarly old-timey font. Even the New York Times itself stopped utilizing it astir 2 decades ago.  

The State Department did not instantly respond to our petition for comment.