Apple Inc. issued a statement to Axios on Wednesday night, regarding the Trump Administration’s decison to rescind Obama-era federal guidance to schools on transgender rights.
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 Inc.
“Obama had instructed public schools last May to let transgender students use the bathrooms matching their chosen gender identity, threatening to withhold funding for schools that did not comply,” Daniel Trotta reports for Reuters. “Trump, a Republican who took office last month, rescinded those guidelines, even though they had been put on hold by a federal judge, arguing that states and public schools should have the authority to make their own decisions without federal interference.”
“‘We all know that Donald Trump is a bully, but his attack on transgender children today is a new low,’ said Rachel Tiven, chief executive of Lambda Legal, which advocates for LGBT people,” Trotta reports. “‘Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who spearheaded the lawsuit challenging the Obama guidance, hailed the Trump administration action. ‘Our fight over the bathroom directive has always been about former President Obama’s attempt to bypass Congress and rewrite the laws to fit his political agenda for radical social change,'” said Paxton, a Republican.”
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“Individual schools will remain free to let transgender students use the bathrooms with which they are most comfortable,” The New York Times reports. “And the effect of the administration’s decision will not be immediate because a federal court had already issued a nationwide injunction barring enforcement of the Obama order.”
NYT reports, “While Wednesday’s order significantly rolls back transgender protections, it does include language stating that schools must protect transgender students from bullying, a provision [Education Secretary Betsy] DeVos asked for, one person with direct knowledge of the process said.”
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