Target faced backlash this year for their egregious pride displays. Were they prioritizing ESG and DEI demands over their shareholders?

From Fox News. America First Legal (AFL) on Tuesday filed a shareholder lawsuit against Target in response to the retailer’s Pride merchandise that resulted in significant backlash, boycotts and a drop in stock price. …

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Many customers were outraged, and boycotts caused a variety of banks to downgrade Target’s stock. Target’s market value was over $74 billion before the Pride displays made national news, as tracked by Dow Jones Market Data Group. As of Wednesday, Target is valued at $60.3 billion.

AFL, along with co-counsel Boyden Gray PLLC and Lawson Huck Gonzalez PLLC, filed the lawsuit against Target and its board of directors on behalf of Brian Craig, a Target shareholder, for “betraying Target’s customers and shareholders with misleading representations about its Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) mandates, and for causing Target shareholders to lose billions of dollars.”

AFL indicated that Target’s 2022 and 2023 Proxy Statements assured shareholders and investors that the board was monitoring for social and political issues and risks arising from the company’s ESG and DEI mandates.

“However, management only cared whether its leftist ‘stakeholders’ were satisfied, disregarding the possibility that its customers and shareholders might feel differently. Thus, in May 2023, Target embraced the radical transgender agenda with its children-and-family-themed ‘Pride’ marketing and sales campaign … this predictably caused more than a $12 billion collapse in share value, the largest stock price decline in over 20 years,” the group wrote when announcing the suit.

“Target’s management has misled investors, assuring them that the corporation oversees social and political issues and risks to protect shareholders, when behind closed doors, it works for its extremist hard-left ‘stakeholders’ at the expense of its customers and shareholders,” AFL continued. “For far too long, large corporations have recklessly pandered to the left and ‘bent the knee’ to serve the woke elites. Today, however, America First Legal says enough is enough.” …

“Federal law requires publicly-traded corporations to provide certain information to shareholders in their proxy statements that allow those shareholders to make informed decisions,” AFL vice president and general counsel Gene Hamilton said.

“As alleged in our complaint, Target failed to execute its duty to its shareholders by making statements that led them to believe that political and social risks were being assessed–when in reality, the only thing Target’s Board and Management cared about was how effectively they fulfilled the desires of various metrics advanced by leftwing ‘stakeholders,’” Hamilton continued. …

What do you think of Target’s “Pride” promotions? Share your thoughts and prayers below.

(Excerpt from Fox News. Photo Credit: Abhinav Bhardwaj on Unsplash)