Some giant retailers that rolled back DEI policies are now feeling some pushback from their own customers and investors.
Target (TGT) and Walmart (WMT) were among the many companies that announced recent about-faces on diversity, a list that also includes Google (GOOG), Meta (META), McDonald’s (MCD), Amazon (AMZN) and Tractor Supply (TSCO).
“If corporations want our dollars, they better be ready to do the right thing,” NAACP CEO Derrick Johnson said in a statement announcing the project.
Target is also mentioned as a specific target of another advocacy group, Black Wall Street Ticker, that has called for a “corporate fast” from spending any money at the Minneapolis retailing giant roughly coordinating with the 40 days of Lent starting March 5 through April 17.
“To see companies we’ve supported heavily — like McDonald’s, Ford Motors, Amazon, Meta, and Walmart— betray our long-standing relationship is beyond disheartening,” the group says on its site, but “the greatest insult comes from Target.”
Walmart has faced some repudiation, too, from some of its own investors. More than 30 shareholders representing $266 billion in assets sent a message last month to CEO Doug McMillon that called the retailer’s recent DEI policy changes “very disheartening.”
“As Walmart shareholders, we are also concerned to see our company give into bullying and pressure from anti-DEI groups,” the group said in its letter.
The pushback illustrates the difficult spot many companies are in as they try to navigate new legal threats surrounding DEI from the courts, conservative activists and a Trump administration that is encouraging DEI revisions across corporate America.
Retailers are particularly challenged because so many Americans rely on their products or visit their stores — and they often find themselves in the political spotlight for a multitude of reasons.
For example, today there is a separate call circulating online for Americans to spend nothing at Walmart, Target, Amazon, and major food chains like McDonald’s on Friday, Feb. 28.
John Schwarz, a New York City resident and founder of the grassroots organization The People’s Union, first called for this “economic blackout” in an Instagram video that gained more than 8 million views.
Schwarz said he wants to end alleged price-gouging and tax avoidance by major corporations.
“If you have to go out and shop that day, go to a local business, a small, locally owned boutique. But if you can, don’t go out and spend a dime that day.”
Walmart CFO recently told Yahoo Finance that it aims to keep prices low under tariff pressure, but the company did not respond for comment around the call for boycotts.
Schwartz said his message advocating for price reductions became conflated with DEI.
“I support it, but I’m not connected to DEI,” Schwarz said.
Pleas for DEI-based boycotts, however, may be having an effect on foot traffic. One retail analyst, Joe Feldman of Telsey Advisory Group, said he suspects shoppers are heeding those pleas based on a look at recent data — even though he can’t be 100% certain.
“Is it more than that? Maybe,” he said. “But I think that’s a key driver.”
For the week of Feb. 3, Walmart foot traffic was down 2.9% year-over-year, and Target foot traffic was down 8.6%, according to Placer.ai. Meanwhile Costco — a retailer that has affirmed its support for DEI policies and listed that way in the NAACP’s “Black Consumer Advisory” — was up 5.7% year over year.
The following week of Feb. 10 also showed a decrease year over year for Walmart and Target, with foot traffic down 1.4% and 3.9%.
Costco showed a 4.6% rise.
“You can see it just dropped like a rock based on Placer.ai data,” Feldman said about Target’s decline in the three weeks after social media accounts started calling for retail boycotts.
Placer.ai’s head of analytical research attributed lower foot traffic in February to “post-holiday spending pullbacks, decreased consumer confidence, weather, and other macroeconomic conditions.”
Inclement weather, like the cold fronts that struck the Midwest, South, and Northeast or wildfires in California, would cause a shorter-term drop in traffic, Feldman added.
Target declined to comment on the cause.
The Target logo is displayed near a store entrance in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images) ·Brandon Bell via Getty Images
It is no stranger to political controversy. It faced a backlash two years ago following a Pride Month promotion, with Target CEO Brian Cornell saying the company’s in-store staff faced “threats and aggressive actions” over the Pride Month merchandise even though the products had been in its stores for more than a decade.
Its website still highlights diversity by promoting a “Buy Black” option, even during Black History Month.
Among those who expressed public disappointment in Target’s DEI changes were Anne and Lucy Dayton, the daughters of one of the company’s cofounders, Bruce Dayton.
They published letters in the Financial Times and Los Angeles Times saying “we are alarmed how quickly the business community has given in to the current administration’s retaliatory threats.”
“It is not ‘illegal’ for a company to create a business model based on what it believes to be important ethical and business standards,” adding that “by cowering, Target and others are undermining the very principles that have made their companies a success.”
