Two years ago, Lizmary Fernandez took a detour from studying to be an immigration attorney to join a free Apple course for making iPhone apps. The Apple Developer Academy in Detroit launched as part of the company’s data-offer-url=”https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/06/apples-racial-equity-and-justice-initiative-surpasses-200m-usd-in-investments/” class=”external-link” data-event-click=”{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/06/apples-racial-equity-and-justice-initiative-surpasses-200m-usd-in-investments/"}” href=”https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/06/apples-racial-equity-and-justice-initiative-surpasses-200m-usd-in-investments/” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>$200 million response to the Black Lives Matter protests and aims to expand opportunities for people of color in the country’s poorest big city.
But Fernandez found the program’s cost-of-living stipend lacking—“A lot of us got on food stamps,” she says—and the coursework…
