The State Department just ordered diplomats to ditch Calibri and return to Times New Roman as the required typeface in all official communications. Secretary Marco Rubio framed this change not as a typography choice, but as a way to “abolish yet another wasteful DEIA program.”
Calibri, however, didn’t become the State Department’s font because someone wanted to score diversity points. It was chosen because disability and accessibility groups recommended it. Plenty of research shows that sans-serif fonts can be easier to read for people with certain visual impairments. That’s not ideology. It’s science + usability.
Imagine being so committed to rolling back inclusion that you turn fonts into a culture-war battlefield.
Accessibility is not a political preference. Inclusion is not a luxury. And a workplace that intentionally discards evidence-based accommodations because they’re perceived as “woke” is a workplace moving backward.
When leadership signals that accessibility is expendable, employees and stakeholders hear three things loud and clear:
- Your needs matter only when they’re convenient.
- We’ll prioritize symbolism over substance.
- We’re willing to reduce your ability to participate fully if it helps us make a political point.
The real harm is the message, not the font.
Workplaces thrive when people feel seen, supported, and able to contribute. DEIA isn’t about creating special treatment or scoring virtue points. It’s about identifying barriers—sometimes tiny, sometimes structural—and removing them so everyone has a fair shot at doing their best work.
If we can’t even agree that readable text is a good thing, what does that say about our commitment to the harder, more meaningful parts of inclusion
Rolling back DEIA under the guise of “professionalism” doesn’t strengthen institutions. It weakens them. And it tells employees—especially those who rely on these accommodations—that their full participation is negotiable.
Leaders have a choice: treat inclusion as noise to be silenced, or treat it as strategy to be strengthened.
Guess which one produces better workplaces, better teams, and better results.
