Target CEO Brian Cornell was unequivocal about the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) in 2021.
“As CEOs, we have to be the company’s head of diversity and inclusion,” Cornell told CNBC. “We have to be the role models that drive change and our voice is important.”
So when Target announced on January 24 that it was pulling back on some DE&I efforts, like many companies have as President Donald Trump rails against diversity, it struck some as a sudden reversal for Target.
But Target’s own press releases about issues of racial and social equity tell a different story. The company has a unique trajectory when it comes to DE&I. It championed diversity enthusiastically after police killed George Floyd in its hometown of Minneapolis in 2020. But after the company faced a conservative backlash over its Pride Month displays in 2023, its use of diversity terminology has been increasingly rare.
After using neither term in press releases in 2019, Target used the term “social justice” 11 times and “racial justice” 10 times in 2020, then used both terms eight times each in 2021, and one time each in 2022. But the company did not issue a press release with either term even once in 2023, 2024, or so far in 2025, according to a Retail Brew analysis of press releases archived on Target.com.
Other diversity-related terms follow a similar pattern:
- The term “diversity, equity, and inclusion” itself was not used in press releases at all in 2019, was used seven times in both 2020 and 2021, peaked at 13 times in 2022, then dwindled to being used just four times in 2023, twice in 2024, and once so far in 2025.
- “Representation” also was not used in 2019, but appeared in press releases six times in 2020, 11 times in 2021, 10 times in 2022, twice in 2023 and not once since then.
We shared our findings with Target, and asked why it saw fit to use DE&I terminology so frequently beginning in 2020, but less frequently or not at all beginning in 2023. The company did not respond to our repeated requests for comment.
“Brand DNA whiplash”: As Retail Brew reported recently, when Target posted a video on Instagram and Facebook on February 2 promoting its Black History Month merchandise, it was slammed by many who noted the company’s reduction of its DE&I efforts, with commenters calling it “hypocrisy,” “performative,” and “gaslighting.”
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We shared our findings with Drew Kerr, founder of The Four Corners Group, once a traditional public-relations shop that today is what he calls a “crisis prevention agency” that trains executives to improve their communications strategies. Kerr said he was struck both by how freely Target embraced diversity terminology beginning in 2020 and by how it started avoiding the terminology in 2023.
“What I’m seeing here is brand DNA whiplash,” Kerr told Retail Brew about Target’s PR approach. “It’s like, make up your mind. Where are you with this?”
As opposed to Target just changing their “refund policy,” the issue of identity and representation “goes to the very core” of many Target customers, Kerr said. “And I do think they’re playing with fire.”
Kerr lauded companies like Costco for being steadfast in defending DE&I programs rather than equivocating.
“Even though the wind is blowing in this anti-DE&I direction, especially with the change of administration, there are companies that are absolutely not budging,” Kerr said. “And it’s not like they’re going out of business.”
DE&...bye: While our findings come from the press releases archived on the Target website, it appears that Target may be in the process of removing some diversity-related press releases from that archive.
As Paige McGlauflin noted in our sibling publication HR Brew recently, one Target press release from 2016, which revealed the company would allow “transgender team members and guests to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity,” is now available only via the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. And the Wayback Machine’s most recent capture of the press release was on January 24, the same day Target announced it was concluding some DE&I efforts.
In that same January 24 announcement, Target said it would no longer participate in the survey on which the Human Rights Campaign bases its annual Corporate Equality Index ratings that measure commitment to diversity.
In a history timeline on its website, Target notes that in 2009, it got a perfect score on the Equality Index. We asked Target if it still considers this a milestone, and if so, why it’s not participating going forward.
Target did not respond.