Another One Bites the Dust: Target Drops DEI

This one leaves me reeling. 

Target, the super-liberal upper-middle class mecca where you can buy eggs, TVs, garden implements, and tuck-friendly bathing suits for children, is dropping its DEI program AND its–ahem–target of increasing suppliers based on racial demographics. 

Target is ending its workforce and supplier diversity programs, joining corporate America’s retreat from DEI initiatives https://t.co/klpWq26ZQd

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) January 24, 2025

Tarjaayy, as we jokingly call it due to its pretensions of being a much classier version of WalMart, has been about as liberal a corporate citizen (I hate that term, but it is very Target) as they come. If there is an alphabet cause it can latch onto, it will. 

JUST IN: Target (@Target) is cutting back its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, ending goals, dropping reports to the Human Rights Campaign, and scrapping programs supporting black- and minority-owned products.

The decision follows backlash over its LGBTQ Pride… pic.twitter.com/bTikrYDi7O

— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) January 24, 2025

Well, another one bites the dust. 

Target TGT 0.94%increase; green up pointing triangle, one of the most full-throated corporate supporters of Black and LGBTQ rights, changed its tune Friday.

Its stores once featured prominent displays of themed merchandise for Pride Month and Black History Month. And after the 2020 murder of George Floyd a few miles from the company’s Minnesota headquarters, the retailer committed to increase the representation of Black employees across the company and spend more than $2 billion with Black-owned businesses by 2025.

The retail giant Friday said it was ending those workforce and supplier diversity programs, after paring back its Black- and LGBT-themed merchandise in 2023. 

Target joins a flood of companies retreating from their diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, policies under pressure from activists and from the new Trump administration. President Trump this week issued a blitz of executive orders aimed at ending these programs not only in the federal government but across corporate America.

Target said it would end the workforce diversity targets it established three years ago, including a pledge to increase the representation of Black employees across the company by 20%. In 2020, when it set that goal, Target said it was a response to internal data showing that its Black workers were leaving the company at higher rates than other workers. A company spokesman said it is on track to meet the goals set out in the 2020 pledge.  

Will Ben and Jerry’s be next? Will Klaus Schwab become MAGA? Is Venezuela going to emulate Argentina?

Stay tuned, folks. The Trump era is going to be a wild ride. 

Target has linked its business to inclusion efforts more explicitly than most. That is in part because it found that themed merchandise collections for events such as Pride or Black History Month sold well, according to people familiar with the situation. 

Racial equity became an important theme inside Target after George Floyd’s murder. One of Target’s oldest stores in South Minneapolis was damaged in the uprising that followed his death. Target hosted an employee listening session attended by 7,000 employees. The store reopened in late 2020 in a ceremony attended by Chief Executive Brian Cornell. 

Target was one of the major TARGETS of the BLM riots, with multiple stores looted and gutted by “mostly peaceful” protesters. 

The @Target on Lake Street in Minneapolis is a scene of absolute destruction.

It sold groceries. Necessities. Now it’s decimated.

It smells. It’s unsafe. There’s broken glass. The effects of these riots in the communities will be felt for years. pic.twitter.com/Z4CG2Cq1P2

— Rob Smith (@robsmithonline) June 2, 2020

No doubt some of the virtue signaling was essentially protection money, but Target was super woke before being woke was cool. 

This is footage from inside Target in Minneapolis during the George Floyd Riots.

Tim Walz is responsible for refusing to call in the National Guard and Kamala Harris is responsible for posting their bail.

This is the legacy of the Harris-Walz ticket. pic.twitter.com/QHAKlMWWe4

— Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) August 9, 2024

It is always thus. “Allies” are usually collateral damage because “allyship” is nothing more than being guilted into capitulation. 

BREAKING: Groups of Republican thugs loot and vandalize a Target in Minneapolis after they got upset over target selling LGBT clothing for little kids including “tuck-friendly” swimwear.

Oh wait. Nevermind. That was one of the Target stores destroyed in the BLM riots. pic.twitter.com/K7PYyn1grx

— Leftism (@LeftismForU) June 4, 2023

I have to say, despite having reasons to resent the pressure to be super-woke, Target never struck me as anything but genuinely committed to the cause. Their HR department must be filled with activists and it is difficult to see how this move will overjoy their employees. 

But it could be that the company is battening down the hatches. Inflation is high, as are interest rates. Cutting DEI measures is a pretty easy cost-savings move, and the cultural climate has made it possible. 

Whatever the reason, even SAYING they are going in this direction counts as a win for Robby Starbuck and the anti-DEI crowd. 

Good job, guys.