Less than two weeks ago, Target announced it was retreating from its DEI push. Target isn't the first or the biggest company to do that recently but it probably is one of the most outspokenly progressive. Remember it was only in 2023 that Target prompted a backlash with some of its Pride-theme merchandise. By the following year they were taking a very different approach though. So Target's decision to abandon DEI seems to have been part of a political walk back to the center after it moved hard left in 2020.

Target was one of corporate America’s most forceful supporters of diversity and inclusion initiatives and vowed to support Black Americans in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder by police in Target’s home city of Minneapolis in 2020. But less than five years later, Target has dialed back its high-profile DEI program...

Target recently announced it was ending its pledge to increase its Black workforce by 20% and its executive racial equity committee. Target said it was “further evaluating” corporate partnerships and changing its “supplier diversity” team, focused on bringing in Black-owned and diverse suppliers, to a “supplier engagement” team working more broadly on including small businesses without specific regard to race. Target will also stop participating in external diversity-focused surveys, including one from the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group.

But of course there are people who shopped at Target specifically because they liked it's progressive outlook. Now some of those progressives are calling for a boycott to punish the chain for making the change.

Nina Turner, a progressive political leader and founder of We Are Somebody, a worker advocacy group, called for a Target boycott.

“There’s power in our purchase,” she told CNN. “We should not spend a dime at Target stores.” “It’s not lost on me that Target is headquartered where the George Floyd uprising happened,” she said. “How quickly they forget and reverse course.”

Black Lives Matter held a small protest in Minneapolis and called for a boycott.

Activists held a press conference at Target headquarters in downtown Minneapolis Thursday morning.

"For decades, Target has benefitted from nearly unfettered support from Minnesota residents, families and consumers all around the country. In the past, Target was known for its diversity initiatives and reputation for supporting diverse communities," said civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong. "Now Target has shown its true face by deciding to roll back its focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion by putting profits and politics over people."

Armstrong encouraged Minnesotans to start boycotting Target stores indefinitely starting Saturday, Feb. 1.

A pastor in Atlanta is echoing that call.

New Birth Baptist Church Dr. Jamal Bryant wants 100,000 people to sign the petition and not shop at the store...

Speaking on Sunday, Bryant joined the calls by activists for a boycott, telling his congregation that Target "spit in the face of Black people" with their decision.

"They are trying to kiss the ring of the president who thinks he is king," Bryant said.

Is Target trying to kiss Trump's ring or some other part of his body? Maybe but I don't think that's the main issue here. I don't think the recent wave of companies backing away from these public DEI goals has much to do with right-wing pressure. It's a factor but probably a lesser one. After all, these companies have been happy to ignore conservatives for decades. Instead, I think the pullback has to do with the realization that blatantly illegal practices which have been winked at in the past may not be winked at any more. 

Companies that publicly set racial hiring quotas need to be very careful about doing that because hiring based on race is still illegal. What methods have these companies been using to achieve, for instance, a 20% increase in black employees? What would a lawsuit turn up in discovery about how that goal was pursued internally? I think these companies are pulling back because they are aware they have greater legal exposure now, in part because of the Supreme Court ruling on Affirmative Action. 

For many of these companies this is still a rebranding effort, not an actual retreat.

Despite the politicised language, workplace experts say most companies are likely to be striving to find a middle ground between abandoning programmes that had benefited them and positioning themselves as targets for conservative activists. Jennie Glazer, chief executive of Coqual, a diversity think-tank whose members are from Fortune 500 companies, says legal risks and polarised messages are causing leaders to pause and recalibrate. But members are more likely to be “reframing than retreating”, particularly as companies tighten spending.

One executive told her: “It’s not that our leaders don’t care — it’s that they’re exhausted by constant change and the feeling they must ‘get it right’ all the time.” Another, committed to inclusion policies, still described business leaders as “overwhelmed”.

Joelle Emerson, chief executive of Paradigm, a US diversity consultancy, identifies a mismatch between rhetoric and reality. “It looks like most companies are standing by their goals of creating fair, inclusive workplaces, while at the same time distancing themselves from a politicised acronym. The acronym is far less important than the work.”

Target hasn't changed its mind about DEI it's just changing its messaging enough to avoid attracting attention, though with the calls for a backlash that strategy seems to be backfiring on them.

The same is probably true with many of the other big companies who've made similar announcements lately. Frankly, I don't think these companies will actually start backing away from this until a) there are a few expensive lawsuits against big companies to change their minds or b) the evidence that DEI training doesn't work and is based on shoddy science (implicit bias testing) finally penetrates the skulls of CEO's at a few big companies. Until that happens, they will just rename the DEI office the Department of Inclusion or some similar nonsense and keep pursuing the same policies.