Republican AGs Warn Apple About Entrepreneur Program That Excludes White, Asian Men

A coalition of 14 Republican attorneys general warned Apple on Wednesday that its “discriminatory” entrepreneur programs excluding white and Asian men may be illegal.

Led by West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, the Republican officials sent a letter to Apple after it opened up applications last week for its “Entrepreneurship Camp” exclusively for minorities and women. The letter, addressed to Apple Senior Vice President Katherine Adams, says that the application stipulations may violate federal discrimination law.

“Apple should abandon this wrong-headed and exclusionary approach. As it stands, the program reflects a troubling fixation on race and sex — and looks to run afoul of anti-discrimination laws. While supporting up-and-coming developers may be a laudable goal, this harmful strategy is not the way to do it,” the attorneys general wrote.

“And given how you sell your products in our States—and recruit developers, engineers, and others from our States, too—we cannot give tacit approval to your methods. Indeed, by hosting some of these camps remotely, we think Apple is effectively exporting discrimination to our States,” they added.

Joining Morrisey were the attorneys general of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Texas.

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Apple faced backlash from conservatives last week after it posted its requirements for its “Apple Entrepreneur Camp” on August 13. According to the tech company, the camp “supports underrepresented founders and developers, and encourages the pipeline and longevity of these entrepreneurs in technology.”

The posting from the company said that all “female,* Black, Hispanic/Latinx, and Indigenous” developers were welcome to apply. The asterisks around “female” pointed to a note that said that Apple “believes that gender expression is a fundamental right. We welcome all women to apply to this program.”

The Republicans said that Apple was sowing social division through the program and pushing “intentional discrimination.”

“If Apple wants to open the doors to underrepresented persons, we can conceive of plenty of ways to do so without engaging in ugly race- and sex-based classifications. It could target those who don’t hail from elite educational institutions,” they wrote. “It could target those from lower socio-economic classes. It could target persons from parts of our country that haven’t yet experienced a boom in app development.”

In recent months, corporations around the country have faced backlash from customers for pushing woke policies and implementing DEI requirements.