DEI Rollback Results: What Followed at Target and Costco

Brands that rolled back DEI programs in 2024 and 2025 left a measurable record, and Target is the best documented case. Target announced its rollback on January 24, 2025, and its first quarter comparable sales fell 3.8 percent, according to the Target first quarter 2025 earnings release. Placer.ai data reported by Retail Brew shows Costco, which kept its programs, gained traffic over the same weeks. The data shows correlation, not proof of cause.

Updated October 11, 2026. Figures come from company releases and from Placer.ai foot traffic data as reported by the outlets linked in each section.

What did Target and Walmart change, and when?

Walmart reversed parts of its DEI policy in November 2024, and Target announced it was scaling back its DEI efforts on January 24, 2025, according to eMarketer's analysis of Placer.ai data. Target's announcement came on a Friday, as Retail Brew reported.

Target said it remains committed to inclusion, as the Defender reported. Civil rights groups and Black clergy responded with a boycott call, which gave the story a second chapter that ran for months.

What did foot traffic and sales show after the announcement?

Placer.ai data shows Target store visits fell 4 percent year over year in the week beginning January 27, 2025, then 8.6 percent the week after, while Costco visits rose in the same weeks. The first four weeks of 2025 had shown Target traffic up between 5 and 11.8 percent, per Retail Brew.

Can anyone prove the rollback caused the decline?

No source in this record proves the rollback caused the decline. Placer.ai, the firm that supplied the traffic data, declined to say how much DEI contributed, as Fortune noted when it reported that Target's traffic fell for a third straight month.

Target's own account is more specific. Michael Fiddelke, who succeeded Brian Cornell as CEO, acknowledged that boycotts and protests had affected sales, according to FOX 9's report on the May 2026 results. Pricing, inflation and store experience also moved in the same period, so a communications team should treat the rollback as one documented factor, not the only one.

How did consumers respond to DEI reversals?

About 19 percent of U.S. adults said they stopped using or selecting brands that contradicted or reversed their DEI efforts, according to March 2025 data from Ad Age and The Harris Poll, cited by eMarketer. The same data put the figure for Gen Z adults at 40 percent.

The organized response was also measurable. More than 150,000 people signed on to the church-led Lenten boycott of Target, and organizers extended it after Easter, per Fortune. A reversal produces two audiences at once: customers who react by changing their selection of stores, and organized groups that keep the story alive.

What did Costco do differently?

Costco kept its DEI program and put the question to a shareholder vote: more than 98 percent of shares voted against an activist proposal to study the program's legal risks on January 23, 2025, according to NPR. Costco's board had recommended a no vote.

The proposal came from the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank. Costco's decision was a clear, public, dated position, taken with its owners in the room. Costco's monthly foot traffic rose 7.5 percent in March 2025, per eMarketer, though the same caution about cause applies.

What followed at Target by 2026?

Target's comparable sales rose 5.6 percent in the three months ending May 2, 2026, its largest quarterly gain since early 2022 and the first positive result after three straight quarters of declines, according to FOX 9. Net sales rose 6.7 percent to $25.44 billion in that quarter.

The same report notes that Minnesota activists said their boycott was continuing. Recovery in sales and an unresolved relationship with an organized audience can exist at the same time, which makes this a longer story than one quarter.

How did the three paths compare?

The three companies took three different positions in the same eighteen-month window, and each left a different record.

What should a communications team decide before changing a program?

Decide who hears first. Target's announcement reached the public before its critics were briefed, and the organized response followed within days. A team that plans a program change should list the audiences who care about it, whether customers, employees, civil rights groups or investors, and prepare a message for each before the change goes public.

Decide what stays. Target's statement that it remains committed to inclusion came alongside the rollback, and critics focused on what was removed. A change that names the commitments that continue, with dates and measures, gives every audience something specific to check.

Decide how to measure. Placer.ai foot traffic, weekly sales, boycott sign-ups and survey data each moved on a different clock in this case. A team that tracks all four can tell a short dip from a lasting shift. The related Pepsi and Kendall Jenner case and the Nike purpose-driven marketing case show the same pattern from other directions, and the guide to corporate social responsibility as a PR tool covers how to build the commitments themselves. The Body Shop ownership case follows what happens to a purpose story when a brand changes hands.