On March 2, 2026, the General Services Administration released its third annual assessment of federal compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, offering a sobering snapshot of the government’s digital accessibility landscape. While the report points to incremental gains in acquisition and procurement practices, it ultimately underscores a more troubling reality: the federal government is still falling short of its legal obligation to ensure equitable, usable access to digital tools and information—for people with disabilities, certainly, but also for the broader public that depends on clear, functional, and inclusive systems to navigate civic life. The short summary: it’s not working well overall—compliance is inconsistent and under-enforced.
This may come as no surprise to many of us who noted in December 2025 that Marco Rubio quietly decided that the State Department should ditch Calibri and go back to Times New Roman. Citing a “decorum and professionalism” decision, which might have seemed legit on the surface, that decision was actually a further assault on equity and accessibility.
Photo by Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call | CQ Roll Call via AP Images
With wars, elections, economic crises, and a million headlines competing for attention, it’s hard to imagine typography landing on anyone’s urgent “to-do” list. When the Time New Roman change took place, most people reacted the same way: shrug, chuckle, scroll.
And that reaction was exactly why this kind of decision mattered even more than we thought. Fonts aren’t decoration. They are infrastructure. Every memo, form, and public notice relies on them. Make them harder to read, and the information becomes harder to access. Make information harder to access, and suddenly a “minor” decision is affecting real people in real ways.
Because here’s the thing: this debate isn’t new. Designers, accessibility advocates, and government agencies have had it before. Quietly. Over the last decade. And the answer they came to wasn’t trendy, or political, or “woke.” It was practical. People need to read what the government sends. Plain and simple.
Why Calibri Was Adopted
When the State Department switched to Calibri in 2023, it wasn’t because someone wanted memos to feel “cooler” or more modern. It was because people were struggling to read them. Literally.
Government communication doesn’t live in filing cabinets. It lives in inboxes, online portals, PDFs, and digital forms that need to work across a dozen devices. Sometimes through screen magnifiers or text-to-speech software. Sometimes by someone juggling multiple tasks—or someone for whom English is a second language.
In those moments, the difference between a readable font and a tricky one isn’t aesthetic. It’s functional.
As designers, most of us are well versed in typography mechanics, Times New Roman is a serif typeface. On paper, in newspapers and books, serifs can guide your eye along the line. On screens? Not so much. At smaller sizes, on lower-resolution displays, they blur. Letters start to look alike. Words get harder to parse. For some people, that’s just annoying. For others, it’s a real barrier.
People with dyslexia, low vision, or cognitive processing differences rely on clear letterforms to distinguish words quickly. Learners of English as a second language benefit the same way. Sans-serif fonts like Calibri are simpler. Open. They hold up better on screens. That’s why the 2023 change wasn’t about style. It was about usability.
And usability isn’t optional, it’s a legal right.
Photo by Markus Scholz/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
Accessibility Isn’t Optional Either
Accessibility is not a fashion statement. It’s not a preference. It’s not something you can roll back because someone thinks a serif looks more serious. It’s baseline. Legal and ethical baseline.
Federal agencies know this. Plain-language laws exist. Digital accessibility standards exist. Section 508 exists. The principle is simple: if people can’t read your documents, they can’t follow instructions, exercise their rights, or access services.
Every visual choice—spacing, contrast, color, typeface—affects comprehension. Make reading harder, and friction builds. That friction doesn’t land evenly. It lands first and worst on people who already face barriers: the disabled, non-native speakers, older adults, and overworked public servants.
Making Calibri go away doesn’t make documents more serious. It makes them harder to read. And harder always lands on those with the least wiggle room.
Tradition vs. Usability
Times New Roman has history. It’s been around forever. It signals authority. It feels “official.” But seriousness doesn’t equal readability. Not on screens, not in complex forms, not when people are juggling tasks and technology that doesn’t always cooperate.
Government forms are dense. Instructions, rules, disclaimers. Cognitively heavy. Adding a font that makes letters harder to distinguish doesn’t reinforce authority—it adds friction. Every serif tail is another small obstacle. For someone trying to get through a form quickly, one misread letter can cascade into errors, delays, or frustration.
So yes, Times New Roman looks serious. But it doesn’t look accessible. And in government, accessibility should come first. Always.
Small Decisions, Big Impact
Most people don’t notice fonts. That’s the point. They’re supposed to work silently. When they fail, the burden quietly shifts to the reader. That’s why typography decisions, though seemingly trivial, have outsized consequences.
Designers talk about accessibility in small improvements: clearer labels, better spacing, simpler navigation. Individually, they might seem minor. Together, they make information usable. Roll them back, and the effects compound.
The people affected most are often those least able to advocate for themselves. The disabled. Non-native speakers. People who are overtaxed by bureaucracy. They don’t get a choice. They get the extra friction.
This is why the 2023 switch to Calibri mattered. It wasn’t about aesthetics. It was about efficiency, fairness, and public service.
Government Communication Is a Public Service
At the end of the day, government communication exists for one reason: to be read, understood, and acted upon. If materials are difficult to read, the system fails at its most basic function. And clarity isn’t optional. Legibility isn’t a style choice. Accessibility isn’t negotiable.
Small details, like fonts, communicate who matters. Calibri wasn’t a fad. It was a fix. Undoing it isn’t tradition. Its nostalgia dressed up as authority.
If we want government communication to work for everyone, we have to stop treating accessibility as optional. Because when clarity becomes negotiable, the people who rely on it most are the ones left behind.
Header illustration by Rochelle Ratkaj Moser of Ratkaj Designs @ratkaj
The post In the Wake of the 2025 Font Wars, Accessibility Is Still an Afterthought appeared first on PRINT Magazine.