Target is the latest company to roll back its usage of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and programs, telling its employees that “many years of data, insights, listening and learning” had shaped the company’s “next chapter.”
In a memo viewed by CNBC, Kiera Fernandez, who serves as the chief community impact and equity officer at Target, told employees that Target would be ending its “DEI goals, stop reports to external diversity-focused groups like the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index,” along with ending “a program” that had been “focused on carrying more products from Black-or minority-owned businesses.”
The memo from Target revealing that it is rolling back its DEI policies and programs comes as President Donald Trump has previously vowed to end former President Joe Biden’s DEI mandates “in favor of a merit-based system.” The United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) under the Trump administration also recently issued a memo ordering all federal DEI employees to be placed on leave by 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday.
“Many years of data, insights, listening and learning have been shaping this next chapter in our strategy,” Fernandez said. “And as a retailer that serves millions of consumers every day, we understand the importance of staying in step with the evolving external landscape, now and in the future — all in service of driving Target’s growth and winning together.”
The New York Times reported that JPMorgan has “taken a different tack,” stating that it “does not intend to back down on diversity”:
JPMorgan, the country’s largest bank by assets, has so far taken a different tack, with its chief executive, Jamie Dimon, announcing this week that the bank does not intend to back down on diversity. “Bring them on,” he said in an interview with CNBC, referring to the activists agitating against the bank’s D.E.I programs. Costco, too, has fought changes. On Thursday, its shareholders rejected a proposal brought by a conservative group that would have required the company to report the risks of its D.E.I policies.
Target’s memo to its employees comes as it has previously demanded “that all customers use mixed-sex bathrooms and mixed-sex changing rooms in the chain’s 1,800 stores.”
As Breitbart News’s Neil Munro previously reported, in May 2023, after deciding to “hide their displays of pride products, leading to a pro-transgender mother” accusing the company of having caved to “terrorists,” executives at Target said they received “threats.” The company’s stock value also dropped, resulting in Target “losing over $9 billion in market value,” as a result of people boycotting “the front-of-the-store, child-oriented, pro-transgender displays”:
Target’s stock value has dropped in the last week, losing over $9 billion in market value. The crash began when Target’s customers mobilized and began to boycott the front-of-the-store, child-oriented, pro-transgender displays. After the backlash, top executives quickly began to move the displays in some stores.
As Breitbart News has reported, Walmart has previously revealed that it would be ditching its DEI programs and policies and removing “sexual and transgender products that were reportedly marketed toward children.”
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