A notable journalist has drawn a striking parallel between Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s directive to change the State Department’s font style and the Nazis’ prohibition on “Jewish” fonts back in 1941.
Steve Herman, who previously served as the White House bureau chief for Voice of America, made the comparison following Rubio’s recent order. He noted, “The Nazis banned the Fraktur font in 1941 because it was ‘too Jewish,'” and shared this on social media.
Herman’s remarks were made in light of Rubio’s instruction to revert from Calibri, the font adopted during Biden’s administration in 2023, back to Times New Roman.
On Mastodon, he reiterated his point, directly contrasting the two font decisions in the comments of Rubio’s announcement.
The memo titled “Return to Tradition: Require Times New Roman 14-point font on all department forms” was released on a Tuesday.
It stated that the change aims to “restore civility and professionalism to the Department’s documented products” and remove what it labeled a “wasteful DEIA program.”
In fact, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken had introduced Calibri as the standard font as part of a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility initiative in 2023, thereby replacing Times New Roman, which had been in use for two decades.
Rubio criticized the switch to Calibri, claiming it led only to a decline in the quality of the department’s communications. He further described the earlier font change as an ineffective and “wasteful” endeavor that did not fulfill its accessibility goals.
His memo suggested that returning to Times New Roman would also align the State Department’s communications with other federal agencies that prefer serif fonts.
However, Herman interpreted Rubio’s decision with skepticism, referencing comments from Nazi leader Martin Bormann about discontinuing the use of certain Jewish fonts in official communications.
The State Department has yet to respond to requests for comments regarding this situation.
