Secretary of State Marco Rubio has dumped a Biden-era change to the State Department’s typeface, justifying the switch as rooting out remnants of “woke” culture in the U.S. foreign service.

He could have just said it was a matter of taste.

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In an “Action Request” memo obtained by The New York Times, Rubio called on State Department employees at diplomatic posts around the world to return to using Times New Roman in all official correspondence, throwing out the sans-serif typeface Calibri, in use since 2023.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken instituted that change at the recommendation of the State Department’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion, saying the new font would improve accessibility for readers with disabilities and people using vision assistive technologies.

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Rubio shut down the department’s DEI office in one of his first acts as secretary.

While the switch to Calibri “was not among the department’s most illegal, immoral, radical or wasteful instances of DEIA,” Rubio wrote (adding the ‘A’ for accessibility), he 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,” Rubio said.

The memo’s subject line described the move as a “Return to Tradition.” 

Serif-faced Times New Roman had been the official font of the State Department since the early 2000s. Before that, Courier New, a font reminiscent of typewriter faces and diplomatic cables of the past, was used for official correspondence.

Rubio’s “return to tradition” memo described the origins of serif typefaces in Roman antiquity, with small strokes at the edges of many characters that embellish the font.

Serif typefaces are “generally perceived to connote tradition, formality and ceremony,” Rubio wrote, citing their use by the White House, Supreme Court, and other state and federal government entities, as well as for the words “United States of America” on the side of Air Force One.

That element, along with the rest of the presidential jet’s livery, was designed by Raymond Lowey at President John F. Kennedy’s request in the early 1960s. The legendary designer used the Caslon typeface as the basis for a custom letter design for the name.

Caslon was used by the founders on the Declaration of Independence.

A related font, Centaur, was used for the exterior signage at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, dedicated to the late president’s memory in 1971.

Design critics have cited the failure of center management to properly match that font and its spacing with the addition of the current president’s name above Kennedy’s for its new, if likely temporary, title. 

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