Dyslexia and Decorum

  A lack of the latter was again displayed in what passes for public discourse these days. On a book tour, California Governor Gavin Newsom has mentioned his dyslexia which is covered in his book. President Trump took notice and, with his usual empathy remarked that Newson “said, in a speech, he was dumb, had low Boards, can’t read, has dyslexia, and has a mental disorder — A Cognitive Mess!”
  I should note that Newsom’s response was also a little less than decorous: “Newsom fired back at Trump on the social platform X, saying, “I spoke about my dyslexia.” “I know that’s hard for a brain-dead moron who bombs children and protects pedophiles to understand,” he added.”

This is not the first time the Trump administration has demonstrated a lack of concern for those with dyslexia, among, it must be admitted, a very large number of other groups for which little concern is shown.

Font Fights

    In the Great Reaction and backlash to the somewhat excessive efforts of the DEI folks, there was one you likely missed. It came at the tail-end of last year and involved typeface, which was just typed in a different way and you may not have noticed. For people with various visual disabilities, like dyslexia, the types of typefaces can make a difference.
  Way back in 2023 during the Biden Administration, Secretary of State, Antony Blinken issued a directive that the State Department drop the typeface, Times New Roman and adopt Calibri. Calibri is more accessible it was argued and Blinken said “that Times New Roman “can introduce accessibility issues for individuals with disabilities who use Optical Character Recognition technology or screen readers.”

  On Dec. 9, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a new directive. Marco’s memo has, as its subject heading: “Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper,” Rubio called Calibri “informal” and said it “clashes” with State letterhead. He also criticized it as a “radical” diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiative.” The reaction was immediate.

  On Dec. 10, this response to the Times New Roman directive appeared in The New York Times. Since it is likely you chose not to read this typeface article, given all the other Trump news, much of it is reproduced below, where the issues and arguments are displayed in Arial.

“A Typeface Falls Victim In the Push Against D.E.I.: Secretary of State Marco Rubio Called the Biden-era Move to the Sans Serif Typeface ''wasteful,'' Casting the Return to Times New Roman as Part of a Push to Stamp out Diversity Efforts,” 

 by Mike Crowley and Hamed Aleaziz.
    Secretary of State Marco Rubio waded into the surprisingly fraught politics of typefaces on Tuesday with an order halting the State Department's official use of Calibri, reversing a 2023 Biden-era directive that Mr. Rubio called a ''wasteful'' sop to diversity.
  While mostly framed as a matter of clarity and formality in presentation, Mr. Rubio's directive to all diplomatic posts around the world blamed ''radical'' diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs for what he said was a misguided and ineffective switch from the serif typeface Times New Roman to sans serif Calibri in official department paperwork.

   In an ''Action Request'' memo obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Rubio said that switching back to the use of Times New Roman would ''restore decorum and professionalism to the department's written work.'' Calibri is ''informal'' when compared to serif typefaces like Times New Roman, the order said, and ''clashes'' with the department's official letterhead….
  Mr. Rubio's directive, under the subject line ''Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper,'' served as the latest attempt by the Trump administration to stamp out remnants of diversity initiatives across the federal government.

   Then-Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken ordered the 2023 typeface shift on the recommendation of the State Department's office of diversity and inclusion, which Mr. Rubio has since abolished. The change was meant to improve accessibility for readers with disabilities, such as low vision and dyslexia, and people who use assistive technologies, such as screen readers.

   Calibri, sometimes described as soft and modern, is typically considered more accessible for people with reading challenges thanks to its simpler shapes and wider spacing, which make its letters easier to distinguish. Mr. Blinken's move was applauded by accessibility advocates.

   But Mr. Rubio's order rejected the grounds for the switch. The change, he allowed, ''was not among the department's most illegal, immoral, radical or wasteful instances of D.E.I.A.,'' the acronym for diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. But Mr. Rubio 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,'' Mr. Rubio said. He noted that Times New Roman had been the department's official typeface for nearly 20 years until the 2023 change. (Before 2004, the State Department used Courier New.)

  Echoing President Trump's call for classical style in federal architecture, Mr. Rubio's order cited the origins of serif typefaces in Roman antiquity. Those typefaces, which are used by The New York Times, include small strokes at the edges of many characters.

   Admirers say those flourishes make letters look more elegant and make them easier to distinguish from one another, even though they can also create a sense of clutter.

  Serif typefaces are ''generally perceived to connote tradition, formality and ceremony,'' Mr. Rubio's order said, adding that they were used by the White House, Supreme Court and other state and federal government entities, as well as in the script on the side of Air Force One.

   Many diplomats are unhappy with changes Mr. Rubio has made to the department's structure and leadership, and have reported badly damaged morale within their ranks. But the Biden administration's move to Calibri prompted some grumbling from some traditionalists who preferred Times New Roman. Mr. Blinken also changed the standard font size, from 14-point to 15-point, requiring extra keystrokes that some diplomats found annoying.”

   
  A few days later there was this follow-up piece in the Times: “Is Times New Roman Better Than Calibri for the State Department?” by Jonatha Corum, Dec.13. Perhaps this is the most important point in it: “I wonder if it’s all a bit of a distraction from what the State Department is actually doing, rather than the font they’re doing it in,” said Tobias Frere-Jones, a type designer known for Gotham, Interstate and other ubiquitous typefaces. “But it is an opportunity to talk about what makes things legible.” Perhaps the larger question is not which typeface is best, or the rationale for the change, but whether the clever people in the Trump administration deliberately chose Times New Roman to sabotage Newsom's run for the presidency. One would not want to elect a president who could not read the State Department memos. Or, the hugest question might be, to use a word of the kind often employed by the current President, do you think President Trump has ever read a State Department memo?

Sources: I have provided enough for this typeface topic and you can easily find some on your own. I could offer more, but will just give you the one with the best title: "A New Serif in Town: Trump's Font Culture War" by Will Barker in The Week:UK. CANCON Up here in the north things tend to move at a glacial pace, which has been quickening. DEI mantras arrived here fairly fast, but the Great Reaction is just now beginning and only the most extreme DEI demands have started to melt. On the language front, things seem fairly calm. The Government of Canada has enough problems in sending out memos in the two official languages so font issues are probably on the back burners. It is the case, however, that several new languages, which are very old, have been added and typeface traumas may be in the offing. Fonts for some of the Indigenous languages are being developed, particularly in British Columbia, but there are sure to be complaints from settlers who will not be able to find the characters on their keyboards, which sometimes are now required in official documents. There are many examples. The first one below is an "Acknowledgement" and the second a sign.

“This place is the unceded and ancestral territory of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh speaking peoples, the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, and has been stewarded by them since time immemorial.”