17 Apr Dear Target Shareholders
Oh, Target. You were…this close!
The other day, my friends at Consumers Research broke the news that some major companies are lying to the world. These companies, which made grand public exhibitions of capitulating to the change in the cultural zeitgeist and abandoning their DEI policies, in truth, did nothing of the sort. They made changes, alright, but they were only superficial and were meant specifically to deceive. Fox News has the details:
A conservative consumer advocacy group is alleging that multiple companies are continuing to undertake diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies under different names after seemingly rolling them back.
Consumers’ Research (CR), dedicated to educating potential shoppers on companies’ woke policies and other matters that could influence their choices, says four major U.S. corporations – Kohl’s, Dollar Tree, UPS and Nationwide – are trying to disguise their ongoing DEI policies by rebranding them under different terms.
“It’s the same racism under a different name. Rebranding from DEI doesn’t change the anti-White and anti-Asian nature of these activities. Corporations should focus on serving customers by finding and retaining the best talent, not engaging in a retrograde racial patronage scheme,” Consumers’ Research Executive Director Will Hild told Fox News Digital.
This is unfortunate, but not all that surprising. As I’ve long noted – echoing sentiments first articulated by the original thorn in ESG advocates’ side, Justin Danhof – pressure on corporations to politicize comes from three sources: the bottom up, the top down, and the outside in. While the zeitgeist may have shifted on the last of these, the first two are, in many cases, unchanged and are still applying the same old ideological prejudices to corporate affairs, albeit using slightly different language. Real change doesn’t happen overnight and may not happen at all if shareholders aren’t vigilant and unrelenting.
Unfortunately, further and perhaps more relevant evidence of this can also be found this week in the dubious behavior of Target CEO Brian Cornell. Three months ago, when Target officially announced its change of heart on DEI and associated nonsensicalities, I used these pages to recount the company’s history of social activism and to note one significant factor in its decision to try to act like a real, grown-up operation that cares about its responsibilities to its shareholders. Specifically, I wrote:
Most importantly, among the concessions/promises it made, Target agreed to end its participation in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index. This is, to put mildly, an significant surrender on the company’s part. Recall that Target’s social activism enraged many of its customers two years ago, when they deemed the company’s Pride Month displays and promotions excessive and overtly supportive of transgender ideology. Most experts believed then that the campaign was prompted by efforts by Target executives to maintain the company’s score on the CEI. While Target was criticized by the HRC for walking back some of the more blatant aspects of its displays, it nonetheless redeemed itself in the organization’s eyes the following year, once again earning a perfect score on the 2024 CEI scorecard. In short, Target has long been a forthright and reliable ally of the Human Rights Campaign.
Until now.
The HRC is, without question, the most pernicious corporate activist group in the country, and breaking from it was hugely significant for Target. Indeed, it was hugely significant for the entire effort to de-politicize business. For one shining moment, Target and its CEO were on the right side of this fight, putting principles above politics and shareholders before pressure groups. That moment, however, may prove to be excruciatingly brief as well:
Target CEO Brian Cornell is set to meet civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton this week in New York amid criticism over the retailer’s rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.
The meeting, which was initiated by Target, follows recent decisions by the retailer to scale back DEI initiatives — a move that prompted backlash from civil rights organizations….
During their upcoming meeting, Sharpton plans to question Cornell on Target’s reversal from commitments made following George Floyd’s 2020 murder in Minneapolis, Target’s hometown….
Sharpton stressed the necessity of accountability from companies that pledged support during critical moments of civil unrest.
“Civil rights leader” Al Sharpton. Give me a break. Sharpton is pretty clear here that he is anything but a civil rights leader. He is, as he’s always been, a social unrest agitator, and unless Target capitulates to him, he will hold the company “accountable.”
Obviously, we’ll have to wait to see what Sharpton does or does not try to do to Target before we know which of its promises it intends to keep. Did Brian Cornell lie in 2020, when he promised to put politics above shareholders? Or did he lie in January, when he promised to stop doing that, when he promised to be a good steward of his investors’ capital?
It’s pretty clear that we can’t trust Target’s own statements here – just as we cannot trust the statements made by the four companies identified and called out by Consumers Research. The fact that Cornell initiated the meeting with Sharpton is not an especially good sign, nor is the fact that he made promises during a period of social unrest, to which Sharpton intends to hold him accountable.
The Dayton Family legacy lives on at Target – unfortunately.
