Apple has issued a statement in response to President Donald Trump’s recent decision to rescind protections for transgender students that would have allowed them to use the bathrooms corresponding to their gender identity. The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Trump overruled his own education secretary’s recommendations, siding with his attorney general in a decision to reverse the Obama administration’s interpretation of nondiscrimination laws, stating that the directive was “improperly and arbitrarily devised … without due regard for the primary role of the states and local school districts in establishing educational policy.” In a statement to Axios, an Apple spokesperson criticized the Trump administration’s decision, effectively calling it a step back in the rights and acceptance of transgender students.
Apple believes everyone deserves a chance to thrive in an environment free from stigma and discrimination.
We support efforts toward greater acceptance, not less, and we strongly believe that transgender students should be treated as equals. We disagree with any effort to limit or rescind their rights and protections.
Apple has long been a supporter of LGBT rights and anti-discrimination in general, getting involved as far back as early 2014 in urging the Governor of Arizona to veto a “religious freedom” bill that would have allowed businesses to deny service to gays and lesbians based on their religious beliefs. In 2015, Apple CEO Tim Cook penned an op-ed column for the Washington Post in response to a similar “religious freedom” bill passed in Indiana, declaring such laws as dangerous, and stating that “These bills rationalize injustice by pretending to defend something many of us hold dear.
They go against the very principles our nation was founded on, and they have the potential to undo decades of progress toward greater equality.”
Last spring Apple also expressed disappointment in a similar law passed in Mississippi, and joined 67 other companies in opposing North Carolina’s HB2 ‘bathroom’ law, supporting the Obama administration’s efforts to block its enforcement — the same policy that the Trump administration has now effectively ended.
This is also not the first policy of the Trump administration that Apple has spoken out against; in January, Apple CEO Tim Cook voiced opposition to Trump’s immigration ban in an internal note to employees, going so far as to join other industry leaders in drafting a letter to President Trump, and considering legal action that the company could take to reverse the order due to its impact on hundreds of Apple employees.
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