Target, one of America’s largest retailers, announced it would join other prominent American stores and brands to drop diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

Per CBS News:

The Minneapolis-based retailer said the changes to its “Belonging at the Bullseye” strategy would include ending a program it established to help Black employees build meaningful careers, improve the experience of Black shoppers and to promote Black-owned businesses following the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.

Target, which operates nearly 2,000 stores nationwide and employs more than 400,000 people, said it already had planned to end the racial program this year. The company said Friday that it also would conclude the diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, goals it previously set in three-year cycles.

The goals included hiring and promoting more women and members of racial minority groups, and recruiting more diverse suppliers, including businesses owned by people of color, women, LGBTQ+ people, veterans and people with disabilities.

Target has long been a fierce corporate advocate for the rights of Black and LGBTQ+ people. In a memo to employees, Kiera Fernandez, Target’s chief community impact and equity officer, as a “next chapter” in a decades-long process to create “inclusive work and guest environments that welcome all.”

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“Target is ending many of their woke policies. I can now exclusively tell you what’s changing and how it happened. Recently executives @Target found out I was doing a story on wokeness there. When we learned they were prepared to make changes, we shifted our focus to those changes instead,” conservative activist Robby Starbuck commented.

“Below are the changes that Target committed to. I have to give their executives credit for making these changes because it will send shockwaves in certain sectors of corporate America,” he added.

Here are the changes Starbuck listed:

• Surveys: Target will no longer participate in the HRC’s woke Corporate Equality Index or any other DEI index.

• Products: Target will not market Pride merchandise to kids going forward, this was not in their statement today but confirmed to me by a Target rep via phone today.

• Sponsorships: Target will “further evaluate corporate partnerships to ensure they are directly connected to our roadmap for growth” — you should read this as no sponsoring events that sexualize kids!

• DEI: Target will end their 3 year DEI goals.

• Supplier Diversity: There will be no preferential treatment for diverse suppliers.

• Target will end their Racial Equity Action and Change (REACH) initiatives in 2025.

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• ERG’s: Target employee resource groups will be expected to focus on the core business, mentorship and growth, not wokeness.

“Target has 415,000+ employees and a market cap of nearly $65B. This won’t just create a healthier environment for employees who will have a neutral workplace without feeling that divisive issues are being injected but it will also extend to their many suppliers who will no longer feel pressure to endorse these policies,” Starbuck said.

“We’ve now changed policy at companies worth nearly $4 Trillion dollars, with many millions of employees who have better workplace environments as a result. With both Target and Walmart cutting woke policies, Amazon should be increasingly worried about losing market share to them as conservative and independent consumers take their money to Walmart and Target instead of Amazon. Amazon also needs to worry about their position as a government contractor given their abhorrent DEI policies,” he continued.

“We are winning and one by one we WILL bring sanity back to corporate America,” he added.

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Starbuck listed other companies that dropped DEI initiatives:

From the New York Post:

Target’s DEI goals included hiring and promoting more women and minority employees, and recruiting more diverse suppliers, including businesses owned by people of color, women, LGBT people, veterans and people with disabilities.

Walmart, Meta and McDonald’s have also recently backtracked on their DEI initiatives amid conservative backlash, along with companies like John Deere, Tractor Supply and Harley-Davidson, which have large presences in red states.

But for Target – which operates nearly 2,000 stores across the country and employs more than 400,000 people – backing off DEI is a stark reversal from its previously “woke” corporate image.

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Just two years ago, the retailer spurred outrage when it launched a “Pride” clothing collection that included LGBTQ-friendly gear for children.

Major retailers have faced pressure from activists online, like conservative Robby Starbuck, who has claimed victory over a number of companies rolling back their DEI initiatives, including Walmart.

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