Target Sued By Shareholders Over DEI Policies Hurting Their Business

Target shareholders have filed a lawsuit against the retail giant for defrauding them into paying higher prices for the company's stock than they should have.

The City of Riviera Beach Police Pension Fund in Florida is leading the effort, proposing a class action suit for their unknowing support of management's "misuse of investor funds to serve political and social goals."

The group of shareholders said that Target allegedly concealed the fact that diversity and social initiatives contained risk that could lead to pushback from consumers.

They also claim that Target hid backlash from its Pride Month campaign in June 2023. That campaign was so extreme, including transgender clothing targeted to children, that it led to significant backlash and a boycott from right-wing shoppers.

Target lost 22 percent, more than $15 billion in stock value, in November 2024 after it revealed yet another disappointing earnings forecast for the holiday quarter.

The shareholders also say that Target's chief rival Walmart hasn't suffered the same type of declines, and that it's a result of "continued backlash from its campaigns."

Target The Latest To Suffer From Misplaced Political Priorities

It's unlikely that Target loses a decision based on these allegations; companies frequently include boilerplate language in investor filings acknowledging that their estimates are based on positive consumer sentiment. That language is designed to protect corporations from exactly this type of suit. 

But the company did lose billions in revenue, saw its share price collapse, and has yet to recover. All because it incorporated far left progressive political messages into places they didn't belong.

Target, like so many others, had no reason or justification for incorporating DEI or other social justice causes into its business. The moral panic of 2020 pushed corporations into thinking that the public wanted them to move into political advocacy. But they didn't, and perhaps still don't, realize that the loudest progressive voices in the room weren't representative of broader consumer sentiment.

Then the power of right wing boycotts became obvious with the Bud Light fiasco, with Target getting swept up in the cultural backlash to progressive extremism. Mostly due to their own incompetence, cowardice and complicity.

Four days into the second Trump administration, officials announced they're ending DEI. Years and billions of dollars too late.

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Ian Miller is a former award watching high school actor, author, and long suffering Dodgers fan. He spends most of his time golfing, traveling, reading about World War I history, and trying to get the remote back from his dog.