Latest news with #Cornell
Daily Mail
4 hours ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Ivy League grad Bill Maher delivers unsettling truth bomb about Trump's war on Harvard
Bill Maher said he supports President Donald Trump's campaign to punish Harvard University during the latest episode of his HBO show. The Trump administration has decided to withhold billions of dollars in grants and contracts after Harvard's leadership refused to submit to a lengthy list of demands from the federal government. 'Trump has declared full-scale war on Harvard, and like so many things he does, there's a kernel of a good idea there,' he said. 'I've been sh****ng on Harvard long before he was.' It's a curious point of agreement considering Maher is a graduate of Cornell University, a rival Ivy League school. CNN host Jake Tapper was a guest on Friday's show and pointed this out to Maher. 'You went to Cornell,' Tapper said. 'That's not why,' Maher said, laughing. 'No, it's because Harvard is an a*****e factory in a lot of ways that produces smirking f**k faces.' In a rather awkward moment, it was then revealed that Maher's other guest, Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, is an alumnus of Harvard. 'He has three degrees from Harvard,' Tapper said. 'He's a f**k face times three.' Maher's glee at Trump taking Harvard down a peg is another instance of the liberal comedian cozying up to the man he once likened to an orangutan. Last month, he had dinner with Trump at the White House alongside UFC owner Dana White and Kid Rock, who organized the meeting. Maher confirmed that Trump was a 'different' person than he'd seen in the public eye over the last decade and even the night before, when the president publicly wondered if the meeting was even a good idea. 'The guy I met is not the person who, the night before, s***-tweeted a bunch of nasty crap about how he thought this dinner was a bad idea, and what a deranged a**hole I was.' Trump's war on Harvard has recently expanded to potentially revoking its tax-exempt status and limiting how many foreign-born students it admits. The Trump administration attempted to block all international students from obtaining visas to study at Harvard, an action that was blocked by a federal judge on Thursday. Trump said this week that the school should cut its population of foreign students - a fifth of whom are Chinese - from nearly 30 percent to 15 percent. This feeds into the White House's growing fear about Harvard's opaque links to the Chinese Communist Party. For instance, officials from the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) have attended public health training sessions run by Harvard's China Health Partnership since 2020. That same year, the US government slapped the XPCC with sanctions for its role in alleged human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic groups in Xinjiang. Another one of Trump's main accusations against Harvard is that university leaders have fostered a breeding ground for antisemitism, making Jewish students feel uncomfortable and unsafe. A large encampment of pro-Palestine students protesting the Israel-Hamas war formed on Harvard Yard during the 2024 spring semester and lasted for three weeks. The students wanted the university to divest from the Israeli government and Israeli businesses, but the administration did not acquiesce. Even before the encampment in April and May of 2024, there were widespread protests at Harvard immediately following the Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. One such protest descended into a confrontation where pro-Palestine demonstrators surrounded a Harvard MBA student and repeatedly shouted 'shame' at him. Claudine Gay, Harvard's president during much of this turmoil, resigned in January 2025 after she refused to condemn students calling for the genocide of Jews when pressed by members of Congress. Gay presided over billions of dollars in lost potential donations from wealthy Jewish families appalled by what took place on campus. That's now on top of the approximately $3.2 billion in grants and contracts Harvard has lost out on from the federal government since Trump took office. Harvard sued the Trump administration for the federal funding freeze and denies accusations of alleged bias against Jewish students. Lawyers for Harvard also argue that the attempted revocation of foreign student visas violates its free speech and due process rights under the US Constitution as well as the Administrative Procedure Act, a law that constrains what federal agencies are allowed to do. Harvard says the Trump administration is retaliating against it because it refused to obey the government's demands to control the school's governance, curriculum and the 'ideology' of its faculty and students. The federal government sent a letter to Harvard President Alan Garber on April 11 claiming that the school has 'failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment.' The letter demanded university leaders adopt merit-based admissions policies, stop admitting students who are 'hostile to American values', enforce viewpoint diversity in all academic departments, and immediately end all DEI programs. Officials explained that they wanted what amounted to progress reports on these goals sent to them so they could ensure that their orders were being followed.
New York Post
a day ago
- Business
- New York Post
Target CEO blames lousy earnings on anti-woke ‘headwinds' — and Wall Street is chuckling
Investors and traders got a good laugh last week when Target's CEO Brian Cornell suggested that a lousy quarter was partly the result of a consumer backlash against the retailer for rolling back its DEI efforts, On The Money has learned. DEI, or Diversity Equity and Inclusion, is a management philosophy that says pure merit-based hiring is overrated. Instead, companies must tailor their workforces to match an intersectional matrix — skills be damned. DEI also holds sway over ads, marketing and other corporate functions. Under Cornell, Target went all in on DEI, most infamously in its Pride celebrations, a corporate marketing and sales effort that targeted the LBGTQ+ community. Nothing wrong with that – unless you do it in a way that spoils the shopping experience of most of your customers. Target CEO Brian Cornell suggested that a lousy quarter was partly the result of a consumer backlash against the retailer for rolling back its DEI efforts. Jack Forbes / NY Post Design Those are mainly working class people who just want to buy Target's low-priced goods and didn't want the company to proselytize to them about gender fluidity – particularly when they show up to a store with their kids. As I wrote in my book 'Go Woke Go Broke: The Inside Story of the Radicalization of Corporate America,' Target and Cornell were on the cutting edge of the woke movement and took it to disastrous extremes. Google the product known as the 'tuck-friendly bathing suit' and you will get the full story so I don't have to recite the gory details. In 2023, a full-on customer revolt ensued, and let's say Target never recovered. Earlier in the year, Target took note and began to unwind some of its DEI policies. Gone also were the flamboyant Pride displays. DEI in hiring was rolled back after the courts ruled that discriminating based on race is illegal, and the Trump administration announced it will enforce these edicts. Now, if Cornell is to be believed, Target is suffering from what might best be described as a counter-customer revolt. Our very own Rev. Al Sharpton believes DEI is a civil right, and recently said he would support a boycott of Target stores. Rev. Al Sharpton recently said he would support a boycott of Target stores. Getty Images Target's latest quarterly earnings of $1.30 a share and revenue drop to $23.8 billion both missed estimates – and by a lot. All this and the impact of the Trump tariff increases hasn't totally settled in. Cornell's explanation to investors for all of the above: Ending DEI and becoming less political represented a 'headwind.' That's why investors and traders who spoke to On The Money are getting a chuckle out of Cornell's rationalization. It makes no sense because Target has been flailing for a while, mostly after it went all in on woke. As my pal the 'Sarge,' the veteran trader and investor Stephen Guilfoyle, wrote in The 'For Target, this was the third quarter in five that the firm failed to both meet Wall Street's projections for adjusted profitability and Wall Street's expectations for total revenue generation. Going further back, Target has failed to meet earnings expectations for six of the past 13 quarters.' On The Money asked a Target rep how Cornell could be so sure DEI headwinds, and not management ineptitude (analysts say its stores are in need of a massive upgrade), are to blame for the lousy first-quarter results. We will let you know what they say when (if) they get back to us.
New York Post
3 days ago
- Politics
- New York Post
Don't fall for the rent-freeze demagogues — they'll make NY's housing squeeze WORSE
Left-wing mayoral candidates and a newly launched 'housing justice' pressure group are dangling the promise of a multi-year rent freeze for the city's nearly one million rent-regulated units. That's more than half the rental apartments in Gotham. It's a cynical political strategy: Pander to a segment of single-issue voters almost too large to resist — and capture the mayoralty. Advertisement Actually implementing that freeze would turn the entire city into a slum of dilapidated and abandoned buildings, forcing thousands of occupants to live in squalor in un-maintained apartments. And it could happen. Just look at the electoral math. Advertisement In New York City, occupants of rent-stabilized apartments — about 1.7 million people living in about 980,000 units — outnumber renters in unregulated apartments. If these rent-regulation beneficiaries are mobilized as single-issue voters, they can swing an election. Barely a million people voted in the 2021 mayoral primary, and just over 1.1 million in the general. Leftist candidates are not leaving it to chance. Advertisement Zohran Mamdani, Brad Lander and Jessica Ramos have all committed to freezing rents if they're elected. 'Tenants are a majority and it's time we had a mayor who acted like it,' Mamdani says. He's calculating that this one voting bloc can carry him to victory. New York State Tenant Bloc, the new pressure group launched by the lefty nonprofit Housing Justice for All, is making the same calculation statewide. Advertisement 'There are over 9 million tenants in New York,' its website declares. 'There's millions more tenants than there are landlords. We have the power to break the real estate industry's grip on our lives by uniting as a bloc.' 'Freeze the Rent!' — plastered on scarlet signs reminiscent of Communist China's flag — is the group's battle cry. Cornell professor Russell Weaver, who teaches courses in 'equitable community change,' calls tenants the 'sleeping giant' in future elections. Some are already awake: Assemblywoman Sarahana Shrestha, a Democratic Socialist representing the Hudson Valley, credits activist tenant voters for her own win in 2022. Now she's sponsoring the REST Act, which would permit towns and cities in all parts of the state to impose rent caps. Current law limits rent stabilization to New York City and downstate counties, unless a town performs a costly study to prove low vacancy rates — a requirement that has kept Poughkeepsie and Kingston from capping rents. Shrestha rants that 'tenants are half the state' and should vote as a bloc to throttle 'price-gouging landlords.' Advertisement But before falling for this demagoguery, New Yorkers need to know the brutal consequences of rent regulations and rent freezes. The nine members of the city's Rent Guidelines Board — all mayoral appointees — set permissible rent hikes on rent-regulated apartments once a year. Succumbing to political pressure, the RGB generally sets hikes at about half the inflation rate — so building owners facing rising property taxes and higher labor, energy and water costs get consistently shortchanged. Advertisement Eventually, many let their properties fall into disrepair, allow dilapidated units to sit vacant — or abandon their buildings altogether. With older housing stock crumbling and fewer units available, a housing shortage is inevitable. Sean Campion, the Citizens Budget Commission's housing expert, testified to the RGB this year that a significant share of buildings is heading into this maintenance 'death spiral.' That's the damage already caused by rent regulation — even before the leftists' threatened freeze. Advertisement Nationwide, rents in metro areas have fallen for 19 consecutive months — except, that is, in New York City, where the supply squeeze sends rents on unregulated units soaring. Denver, the metro area where rents are falling fastest, has no rent regulation. Colorado state law forbids it. That's what New York state should do. Advertisement What about helping the poor? Rent regulation doesn't accomplish that. Scoring a rent-regulated apartment requires no means testing. You need luck, sharp elbows — and often a wad of cash to buy your way in. Occupants of rent-regulated apartments — call them privileged renters — tend to have somewhat smaller incomes, but are also generally adults without kids. Families with young children, who need rent breaks the most to remain in the city, are less apt to luck out, according to the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development. A fair system would provide assistance based on need — funded by all taxpayers, not only by building owners. New York doesn't command certain grocery stores to sell food at below-market prices to the needy. The taxpayer-funded SNAP program is there for that purpose. Rent regulation rewards pandering politicians, not the poor. That's why it survives. The radical calls for a rent freeze are a red flag that New Yorkers risk being crushed — steamrolled — by a mobilized bloc of voters looking out only for themselves. Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and co-founder of the Committee to Save Our City.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Hiltzik: Target learns that bowing to anti-DEI backers can be costly, a lesson for those bowing to Trump
Has any American company run away from a public commitment faster than Target? In an Aug. 19, 2020, conference call, Target Chief Executive Brian Cornell forthrightly put his company in the forefront of the quest for racial and ethnic justice. George Floyd had been murdered by Police Officer Derek Chauvin, abetted by several other officers in Minneapolis, Target's home city, only about three months earlier. Calls for recognition of the racism exposed by the killing were still reverberating nationwide. "Our team is passionately demanding equity and justice for our Black colleagues and guests," Cornell said. "We are united in that passion and committed ... to playing an active role in addressing the persistent racial injustices that have sparked protests around the world." If the founding history of this country is any guide, those who stood up in court to vindicate constitutional rights and, by so doing, served to promote the rule of law, will be the models lauded when this period of American history is written. Federal Judge Beryl Howell He said Target would put its influence to work "to determine actions and resources that will move us towards a more inclusive, equitable and just society." The company ultimately committed to increase the racial diversity of its workforce and to spend billions of dollars with Black-owned suppliers. How times change. This January, Target backed down. On Jan. 24 — just four days after President Trump launched his second term with a flurry of antidiversity executive orders — Target announced it was "concluding our three-year diversity, equity and inclusion goals" and its "Racial Equity Action and Change initiatives." (REACH was an initiative Cornell had announced in that 2020 call.) The company also said it was withdrawing from "all external diversity-focused surveys," including a widely followed Corporate Equality index sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign, which tracks corporate policies on LGBTQ+ rights and inclusion. And it said it was "evolving" its "supplier diversity team to "supplier engagement." Target may have thought it was tacking toward consumer preferences, or that DEI was a craze that had faded out. Read more: Hiltzik: Columbia University's capitulation to Trump puts academic freedom at risk coast to coast But here's the punch line: Target's sales have cratered, at least in part because consumers were angry about its reversals. The company's management has been a little vague about the impact of all this. At a May 21 conference call with Wall Street analysts following its release of earnings for the first quarter ended March 31, Cornell alluded to the backlash without going into detail. He attributed the company's ugly performance — comparable-store sales down by 5.7% from a year earlier — to several factors, including "the reaction to the updates we shared ... in January." That was an obvious allusion to the dropping of DEI initiatives. But Cornell said "we can't reliably estimate the impact of each [factor] separately." It's true that Target, like other big retailers, has had disappointing sales recently. In the last quarter, most have attributed any sales slump to consumer uncertainty about Trump's confusing tariff pronouncements. But the fact that Cornell felt obligated to mention the consumer reaction to Target's altered diversity policies is notable, and appears to be unique in the retail industry. I asked Target for further comment on the issue but received no reply. But since Target had given its commitment to diversity a central role in its corporate persona, it's proper to take a closer look — not only at the company's experience, but also the course of corporate antidiscrimination policies more generally. It's also worth noting that Target isn't the first institution to discover that abandoning principle isn't a sure path to material success or public esteem. That's been the experience of big law firms and major universities that kowtowed to Trump in his anti-DEI drive this year. Several major firms that were threatened with or hit with White House sanctions made deals with Trump that included confessing to misbehavior that may not even have occurred and committing to hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of pro bono work that may be dictated by Trump — a departure from pro bono tradition, which typically means providing underserved groups or individuals with free legal representation. Read more: Hiltzik: Business leaders bow to anti-DEI activists — except at Costco The firms may have thought that meeting Trump's terms would be the best way to keep clients who might have been rattled by Trump's attacks on their lawyers. As it happens, some clients have fled anyway, possibly concluding that big firms that won't fight Trump might not defend them aggressively against other adversaries. Some also have lost lawyers, dismayed by the pusillanimous behavior of their leaders. It turns out that law firms that have steadfastly rejected Trump's threats have been winning in their lawsuits against the White House's allegedly illegal and unconstitutional threats and sanctions. Federal judges have granted the firms Jenner & Block, WilmerHale and Susman Godfrey temporary restraining orders against Trump's sanctions. Federal Judge Beryl Howell of Washington, D.C., ruled Trump's executive order targeting the firm Perkins Coie unconstitutional and granted the firm summary judgment against the government. Howell went further, taking a swipe at the firms that had capitulated to Trump. "If the founding history of this country is any guide," she wrote, "those who stood up in court to vindicate constitutional rights and, by so doing, served to promote the rule of law, will be the models lauded when this period of American history is written." Universities such as Columbia are also discovering that the Trump administration has trouble taking "yes" for an answer. Columbia publicly bent its knee to Trump in March, but that didn't save it from being hit with more sanctions from the White House last week over its supposed violations of civil rights law through purported "deliberate indifference" toward harassment of Jewish students. That brings us to the capitulation of American corporations to the partisan, ideological assault on diversity, equity and inclusion, and specifically to the fix Target is in. Read more: Hiltzik: Right-wing culture warriors say wokeness is dead. They can't even define it I've written before about how corporate America is a thin reed to lean on as a counterforce to assaults from the political right wing on voting rights, women's access to reproductive healthcare and democracy itself. Many companies that once expressed a commitment to end or at least review their contributions to the 147 Republicans who voted against certifying the 2020 election soon resumed their contributions. Some made similar promises to oppose state laws restricting abortion or voting rights, or talked openly about reducing their activities in states enacting such measures. For the most part, these pledges have been all talk, no action. When Republicans campaigned against "woke" policies or DEI — an abbreviation that had the virtue for the GOP of being vague enough to serve as an all-purpose slogan for conservatives — Walmart, Ford, Anheuser-Busch and John Deere, among other companies, rolled back their initiatives. One of the exceptions to take a strong stand on behalf of DEI is Costco Wholesale. In a response to a shareholder resolution proposed by the right-wing National Center for Public Policy Research insinuating that Costco's DEI program 'holds litigation, reputational and financial risks to the Company,' Costco management reiterated its commitment to DEI. 'Our efforts at diversity, equity and inclusion remind and reinforce with everyone at our Company the importance of creating opportunities for all. We believe that these efforts enhance our capacity to attract and retain employees who will help our business succeed.' The anti-DEI resolution was rejected by 98% of shareholders voting. Target seemed well placed to be another exception. It's one of America's biggest retailers, with more than $100 billion in annual sales. Early in 2023, Cornell boasted that 'our long-standing commitment to diversity, and equity, and inclusion ... has fueled much of our growth over the last nine years.' In 2022, in fact, Target published a scorecard of its DEI progress—a 33% increase in corporate officers of color, 62% increase in promotions for people of color, spending of $1.78 billion with "diverse suppliers," and so on. "We are never done," it pledged. About two weeks after Cornell's 2023 boast, the company capitulated to what I labeled a "braying mob of anti-LGBTQ+ reactionaries" that had targeted Target during Pride Month, a celebration of LGBTQ+ communities every June. Read more: Hiltzik: Right-wing hatemongers count on the cowardice of companies such as Target Even though the company's stores had featured Pride-related merchandise for years, in 2023 it told personnel in many stores to reduce or even eliminate their Pride-themed displays or move the merchandise to less conspicuous sections of the stores. Some LGBTQ+ designers reported that their products have been taken off the shelves. This year's retreat from DEI policies is merely a continuation of that craven approach. It has supplanted its straightforward commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, as Cornell expressed it in 2020, with a steamy helping of corporate-speak mush. "Belonging for all is an essential part of our team and culture, helping fuel consumer relevance and business results," the company said in a publicly issued "fact sheet" in January. "We aim to create joyful experiences through an assortment of products and services that help all guests feel seen and celebrated, increasing relevance with consumers... . We build deep and lasting relationships with the communities we serve, driving impact, economic vitality and connection that fuels loyalty." The communities most affected by the pullback didn't buy into these vague promises. Black pastors and others launched boycotts of the company; judging from Cornell's pained observation to the Wall Street analysts last week, the boycotts may have had an effect. Whether Target continues to see a slide in sales because of customer discontent isn't clear at this moment, and it's certainly possible that consumer concerns about Trump's tariffs and their consequent upward pressure on prices will wreak the most damage. But this is a lesson on the shallowness of corporate character. Trump, it has become evident, is himself all talk, no action. He doesn't have the legal power to end DEI initiatives at private businesses, and the cadre of followers who respond to his culture warfare may be nowhere as large as they think they are. But that only makes the faintheartedness of corporate America all the more dispiriting. Get the latest from Michael HiltzikCommentary on economics and more from a Pulitzer Prize me up. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
Target learns that bowing to anti-DEI backers can be costly, a lesson for those bowing to Trump
Has any American company run away from a public commitment faster than Target? In an Aug. 19, 2020, conference call, Target Chief Executive Brian Cornell forthrightly put his company in the forefront of the quest for racial and ethnic justice. George Floyd had been murdered by Police Officer Derek Chauvin, abetted by several other officers in Minneapolis, Target's home city, only about three months earlier. Calls for recognition of the racism exposed by the killing were still reverberating nationwide. 'Our team is passionately demanding equity and justice for our Black colleagues and guests,' Cornell said. 'We are united in that passion and committed ... to playing an active role in addressing the persistent racial injustices that have sparked protests around the world.' He said Target would put its influence to work 'to determine actions and resources that will move us towards a more inclusive, equitable and just society.' The company ultimately committed to increase the racial diversity of its workforce and to spend billions of dollars with Black-owned suppliers. How times change. This January, Target backed down. On Jan. 24 — just four days after President Trump launched his second term with a flurry of antidiversity executive orders — Target announced it was 'concluding our three-year diversity, equity and inclusion goals' and its 'Racial Equity Action and Change initiatives.' (REACH was an initiative Cornell had announced in that 2020 call.) The company also said it was withdrawing from 'all external diversity-focused surveys,' including a widely followed Corporate Equality index sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign, which tracks corporate policies on LGBTQ+ rights and inclusion. And it said it was 'evolving' its 'supplier diversity team to 'supplier engagement.' Target may have thought it was tacking toward consumer preferences, or that DEI was a craze that had faded out. But here's the punch line: Target's sales have cratered, at least in part because consumers were angry about its reversals. The company's management has been a little vague about the impact of all this. At a May 21 conference call with Wall Street analysts following its release of earnings for the first quarter ended March 31, Cornell alluded to the backlash without going into detail. He attributed the company's ugly performance — comparable-store sales down by 5.7% from a year earlier — to several factors, including 'the reaction to the updates we shared ... in January.' That was an obvious allusion to the dropping of DEI initiatives. But Cornell said 'we can't reliably estimate the impact of each [factor] separately.' It's true that Target, like other big retailers, has had disappointing sales recently. In the last quarter, most have attributed any sales slump to consumer uncertainty about Trump's confusing tariff pronouncements. But the fact that Cornell felt obligated to mention the consumer reaction to Target's altered diversity policies is notable, and appears to be unique in the retail industry. I asked Target for further comment on the issue but received no reply. But since Target had given its commitment to diversity a central role in its corporate persona, it's proper to take a closer look — not only at the company's experience, but also the course of corporate antidiscrimination policies more generally. It's also worth noting that Target isn't the first institution to discover that abandoning principle isn't a sure path to material success or public esteem. That's been the experience of big law firms and major universities that kowtowed to Trump in his anti-DEI drive this year. Several major firms that were threatened with or hit with White House sanctions made deals with Trump that included confessing to misbehavior that may not even have occurred and committing to hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of pro bono work that may be dictated by Trump — a departure from pro bono tradition, which typically means providing underserved groups or individuals with free legal representation. The firms may have thought that meeting Trump's terms would be the best way to keep clients who might have been rattled by Trump's attacks on their lawyers. As it happens, some clients have fled anyway, possibly concluding that big firms that won't fight Trump might not defend them aggressively against other adversaries. Some also have lost lawyers, dismayed by the pusillanimous behavior of their leaders. It turns out that law firms that have steadfastly rejected Trump's threats have been winning in their lawsuits against the White House's allegedly illegal and unconstitutional threats and sanctions. Federal judges have granted the firms Jenner & Block, WilmerHale and Susman Godfrey temporary restraining orders against Trump's sanctions. Federal Judge Beryl Howell of Washington, D.C., ruled Trump's executive order targeting the firm Perkins Coie unconstitutional and granted the firm summary judgment against the government. Howell went further, taking a swipe at the firms that had capitulated to Trump. 'If the founding history of this country is any guide,' she wrote, 'those who stood up in court to vindicate constitutional rights and, by so doing, served to promote the rule of law, will be the models lauded when this period of American history is written.' Universities such as Columbia are also discovering that the Trump administration has trouble taking 'yes' for an answer. Columbia publicly bent its knee to Trump in March, but that didn't save it from being hit with more sanctions from the White House last week over its supposed violations of civil rights law through purported 'deliberate indifference' toward harassment of Jewish students. That brings us to the capitulation of American corporations to the partisan, ideological assault on diversity, equity and inclusion, and specifically to the fix Target is in. I've written before about how corporate America is a thin reed to lean on as a counterforce to assaults from the political right wing on voting rights, women's access to reproductive healthcare and democracy itself. Many companies that once expressed a commitment to end or at least review their contributions to the 147 Republicans who voted against certifying the 2020 election soon resumed their contributions. Some made similar promises to oppose state laws restricting abortion or voting rights, or talked openly about reducing their activities in states enacting such measures. For the most part, these pledges have been all talk, no action. When Republicans campaigned against 'woke' policies or DEI — an abbreviation that had the virtue for the GOP of being vague enough to serve as an all-purpose slogan for conservatives — Walmart, Ford, Anheuser-Busch and John Deere, among other companies, rolled back their initiatives. One of the exceptions to take a strong stand on behalf of DEI is Costco Wholesale. In a response to a shareholder resolution proposed by the right-wing National Center for Public Policy Research insinuating that Costco's DEI program 'holds litigation, reputational and financial risks to the Company,' Costco management reiterated its commitment to DEI. 'Our efforts at diversity, equity and inclusion remind and reinforce with everyone at our Company the importance of creating opportunities for all. We believe that these efforts enhance our capacity to attract and retain employees who will help our business succeed.' The anti-DEI resolution was rejected by 98% of shareholders voting. Target seemed well placed to be another exception. It's one of America's biggest retailers, with more than $100 billion in annual sales. Early in 2023, Cornell boasted that 'our long-standing commitment to diversity, and equity, and inclusion ... has fueled much of our growth over the last nine years.' In 2022, in fact, Target published a scorecard of its DEI progress—a 33% increase in corporate officers of color, 62% increase in promotions for people of color, spending of $1.78 billion with 'diverse suppliers,' and so on. 'We are never done,' it pledged. About two weeks after Cornell's 2023 boast, the company capitulated to what I labeled a 'braying mob of anti-LGBTQ+ reactionaries' that had targeted Target during Pride Month, a celebration of LGBTQ+ communities every June. Even though the company's stores had featured Pride-related merchandise for years, in 2023 it told personnel in many stores to reduce or even eliminate their Pride-themed displays or move the merchandise to less conspicuous sections of the stores. Some LGBTQ+ designers reported that their products have been taken off the shelves. This year's retreat from DEI policies is merely a continuation of that craven approach. It has supplanted its straightforward commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, as Cornell expressed it in 2020, with a steamy helping of corporate-speak mush. 'Belonging for all is an essential part of our team and culture, helping fuel consumer relevance and business results,' the company said in a publicly issued 'fact sheet' in January. 'We aim to create joyful experiences through an assortment of products and services that help all guests feel seen and celebrated, increasing relevance with consumers... . We build deep and lasting relationships with the communities we serve, driving impact, economic vitality and connection that fuels loyalty.' The communities most affected by the pullback didn't buy into these vague promises. Black pastors and others launched boycotts of the company; judging from Cornell's pained observation to the Wall Street analysts last week, the boycotts may have had an effect. Whether Target continues to see a slide in sales because of customer discontent isn't clear at this moment, and it's certainly possible that consumer concerns about Trump's tariffs and their consequent upward pressure on prices will wreak the most damage. But this is a lesson on the shallowness of corporate character. Trump, it has become evident, is himself all talk, no action. He doesn't have the legal power to end DEI initiatives at private businesses, and the cadre of followers who respond to his culture warfare may be nowhere as large as they think they are. But that only makes the faintheartedness of corporate America all the more dispiriting.
