{"id":340737,"date":"2025-12-10T09:28:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T09:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/340737\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T09:28:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T09:28:12","slug":"font-of-wasteful-diversity-trumps-state-department-orders-return-to-times-new-roman-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/340737\/","title":{"rendered":"Font of \u2018wasteful\u2019 diversity: Trump\u2019s state department orders return to Times New Roman | Trump administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

US diplomats have been ordered to return to using Times New Roman font in official communications, with secretary of state Marco Rubio<\/a> calling the Biden administration\u2019s decision to adopt Calibri a \u201cwasteful\u201d diversity move, according to an internal department cable seen by Reuters.<\/p>\n

The department under Rubio\u2019s predecessor Antony Blinken switched to Calibri in 2023, claiming the modern sans-serif font was more accessible for people with disabilities because it did not have the decorative angular features and was the default in Microsoft products.<\/p>\n

But a state department cable dated 9 December sent to all US diplomatic posts said that typography shapes the professionalism of an official document and Calibri is informal compared to serif typefaces.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo restore decorum and professionalism to the Department\u2019s written work products and abolish yet another wasteful DEIA program, the Department is returning to Times New Roman as its standard typeface,\u201d the cable said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis formatting standard aligns with the President\u2019s One Voice for America\u2019s Foreign Relations directive, underscoring the Department\u2019s responsibility to present a unified, professional voice in all communications,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n

Calibri (left) became the official state department font in 2023, but has now been ditched for Times New Roman (right). Illustration: Guardian Design<\/p>\n

The change to Calibri in 2023 was recommended by diversity and disability groups in the US government, according to US media reports. Some studies have suggested that sans-serif fonts, such as Calibri, are easier to read for those with certain visual disabilities.<\/p>\n

The state department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.<\/p>\n

After taking office in January, Trump moved quickly to eradicate federal DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programmes<\/a> and discourage them in the private sector and education, including by directing the firing of diversity officers at federal agencies and pulling grant funding<\/a> for a wide range of programmes.<\/p>\n

DEI policies<\/a> became more widespread after nationwide protests in 2020 against police killings of unarmed Black people, spurring a conservative backlash. Trump and other critics of diversity initiatives say they are discriminatory against white people and men and have eroded merit-based decision making. Supporters of DEI measures say they serve as a counter to the biases that quietly endure in so-called colour-blind and merit-based societies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US diplomats have been ordered to return to using Times New Roman font in official communications, with secretary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-340737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}