This Riviera Beach board is suing Target for the DEI efforts it's already ending
But you wouldn't expect it coming from the city of Riviera Beach, which lists 'diversity' as one of the city's bedrock values.
'We celebrate diversity as a core tenant and fundamental aspect of government, and we look to be inclusionary in activities and programs in an effort to ensure everyone is equally part of the process,' the city's value statement reads.
The government of Riviera Beach, which is 65 percent Black, reflects its minority-majority population.
The mayor and four of the five city council members are Black. Five of the eight members of the executive staff of the police department, including the chief and assistant chief, are Black. The city manager is Black. The assistant fire chief is Black.
So, it was a bit of a shocker to read that the lead plaintiff in a newly filed federal lawsuit that a New York law firm is trying to cultivate against Target for the economic consequences of that retailer's DEI policies is a city board in Riviera Beach.
The City of Riviera Beach Police Pension Fund v. Target contends that the investments of the pension fund, in which a small share was Target stock, suffered because of the national backlash to the retailer's DEI policies.
In the lawsuit, the pension board, which is chaired by a Black motorcycle officer working for the city's police department, paints itself as a victim of Target's diversity initiatives, which are characterized as a 'misuse of investor funds to serve political and social goals.'
Speaking of social goals, the city's police department notes that qualified applicants can request affirmative-action hiring.
'The Riviera Beach Police Department values diversity and strives to be inclusive in its activities and programs,' the department's online site reads. 'The RBPD also has a community-oriented policing program that emphasizes diversity in representation.'
So Riviera Beach city officials, including its police officers, know a thing or two about the advantages of diversity, equity and inclusion.
Target's diversity initiatives grew from the 2020 police-custody homicide of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the corporate home of Target.
Floyd's death and the subsequent civil rights protests it generated became the impetus for wide-ranging diversity initiatives at the company.
Target pledged to grow its Black workforce by 20 percent, and establish a Racial Equity Action and Change committee to 'focus specifically on how we can drive lasting impact' for Black employees and customers.
Target also announced it would spend more than $2 billion in buying more products from Black-owned vendors, while pledging millions more to support Black-led nonprofits and scholarships to Black students at historically Black colleges and universities.
The company also pledged to do more to support women, LGBTQ+ people, veterans and people with disabilities.
Target's CEO Brian Cornell characterized these wide-ranging initiatives as good business moves that would grow the company.
'The things we've done from a DE&I standpoint — it's adding value, it's helping us drive sales, it's building greater engagement with both our teams and our guests. And those are just the right things for our business today,' he said at the time.
But the political right painted a sinister portrait of DEI as the central evil of a 'woke' ideology that constituted reverse-discrimination against straight white men. And Target became a focal point in the evolving culture war.
Whipped up by this frenzy, incidents occurred when members of the public stormed the stores, vandalized merchandise and threatened employees during Target's LGBT-Pride campaign in the spring of 2023.
The lawsuit filed by the Riviera Beach Police Fund contends that Target failed to warn its investors that its diversity initiatives could reduce the value of its stock.
And that the failure to warn the investors constitutes civil fraud, the lawsuit contends.
'As the truth of the negative effect of these campaigns came to light, Target suffered tens of billions of losses in its market capitalization from May 2023 through present,' the lawsuit contends.
An addendum to the lawsuit shows that the Riviera Beach Police Pension Fund bought about a thousand shares of Target stock in the fall of 2022 at $156.21 and $164.68 per share, and then sold them the following year for $133.54 per share.
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That's a loss of 14.5 to 19 percent. This stock represented a sliver of the pension fund's investments, which require that no more than 5 percent of the fund can be invested in any one stock.
Rand Hoch, the founder of the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council, called Riviera Beach's involvement in this lawsuit 'insane.'
'I'm shocked that they would be involved with an action that is totally against what Riviera Beach has stood for for so long,' Hoch said. 'It's embarrassing.'
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The Riviera Beach police pension board is the only listed plaintiff in the suit, which was filed by Grant & Eisenhofer, a New York based firm that calls itself 'a global leader in complex, high-stakes plaintiff advocacy.'
The lawsuit was filed in the Middle District of Florida, a federal jurisdiction that doesn't include Riviera Beach. The law firm is advertising for more lead plaintiffs to join the lawsuit by the April 1 deadline in hopes of making it a class-action case.
Michael Brown is the officer who chairs the Riviera Beach Police Pension Fund, and the person who authorized the fund's participation in the suit.
Brown declined to talk about the suit and how Riviera Beach got involved in it. He referred questions to the board's Miami attorney, Pedro Herrera.
Herrera referred questions to a lawyer in Philadelphia, Marc Weinberg, who didn't return a call for comment.
The mayor, the police chief, and all five city council members all failed to respond to questions about their prior knowledge of the lawsuit.
As for Target, the company announced last month that it was ending most of its diversity, equity and inclusion efforts due to 'the importance of staying in step with the evolving external landscape.'
This capitulation to DEI critics prompted some civil rights groups to call for a boycott of Target.
Frank Cerabino is a news columnist with The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today network.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Target DEI lawsuit finds an ally in Riviera Beach | Opinion
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