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

Calibri Font is the latest public official to be fired by the Trump administration over ties to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.

In a move similar to the one reported in the Onion (and sure to become fodder for “Saturday Night Live” and “South Park”), Secretary of State Marco Rubio has banned the font and ordered diplomats to use Times New Roman on official documents instead, according to the New York Times, which obtained a leaked memo on the matter.

Calibri, a sans-serif font, appears to have been adopted in 2023 during Biden’s term in office. It was chosen by the department’s DEI Office at the time, but was later disbanded under Mr. Rubio amid the Trump administration’s anti-DEI mandate.

This font was chosen to make the document easier to read for visually impaired people. Sans-serif fonts are fonts that do not have decorative swirls or lines at the edges of the letters. With its clean lines and slightly wider letter spacing, it is thought to be more accessible to people with problems ranging from dyslexia to low vision (though research is inconclusive as to how much serif itself affects readability).

Rubio’s memo designates Times New Roman as the official font for his term, saying it will “restore civility and professionalism” to the document. In his memo, Rubio acknowledged that Calibri was not, in his eyes, the “most illegal, immoral, extreme, or wasteful” example of DEI, but still accused the font of contributing to the “deterioration” of official State Department communications.

Many people across political lines hate Calibri (according to an informal survey of TechCrunch writers), but this is still a harsh criticism of the font.

Apparently, there were rumors within the department that Calibri would first be hired in 2023, The New York Times reported. Font choices inspire the same kind of love-hate passions that sports teams do. Everyone has favorites and rivals.

Calibri declined to comment to TechCrunch on how amazing it actually was, but many would agree that Times New Roman is a particularly old font. Even the New York Times stopped using it almost 20 years ago.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.