Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has a plan to go after Target, alleging its business practices hurt the states’ retirement fund.
Uthmeier posted a video to social media platform X on Thursday explaining why his office decided to take action.
Today, we filed a lawsuit against Target on behalf of the Florida State Board of Administration.
Target’s efforts to sexualize children caused its stock price to plummet, harming Florida’s retirement fund and putting the retirements of our teachers and first responders at risk: pic.twitter.com/UcZq3cSC3p
— James Uthmeier (@JamesUthmeierFL) February 20, 2025
Uthmeier explained his class action lawsuit was “for misleading shareholders and pushing a harmful leftist agenda at the expense of shareholder returners.”
“While Target told their investors, they would keep the company out of controversy to protect the stock price, the retailer engaged in a marketing campaign targeting and sexualizing children,” he said, adding, “You’ll remember Target promoted rainbow sports bras for boys, children’s swimsuits with transgender features, and books for kids that asked them to question their biological reality.”
Uthmeier then explained how this campaign hurt Floridians’ retirements as it caused massive losses for Target.
“This radical campaign predictably caused Target’s stock price to plummet, wiping out ten billion in market value in just ten days. And those losses put the retirement accounts of Florida’s teachers and first responders at unacceptable risk.
“Our public servants should not suffer diminished retirement security because companies focused on leftist virtue signaling rather than shareholder returns.” he stated.
The Orlando Sentinel reported, Florida is the first state to sue Target over its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives that created the “pride” campaign dating to the summer of 2023.
The Palm Beach Post highlighted the following from Florida’s filing:
“Target’s CEO Brian Cornell and its Board of Directors did not oversee or disclose the obvious risks of Target’s 2023 LGBT-Pride Campaign and the ESG/DEI initiatives which it advanced, but they told investors that they did
“In doing so, they deceived Target investors as to the true nature of the risks of their investments and caused them to unknowingly support Target’s board and management in their misuse of investor funds to serve its divisive political and social goals — and ultimately cost investors billions.”
Despite Target backing away from DEI as of last month, along with several other companies, their past is coming back to haunt them.
The New York Post reported at the time of the campaign the exact losses Uthmeier mentioned in his video.
Floridians worked hard to for their pensions and don’t want to see that money sacrificed at the altar of “pride” and DEI.
With the news that Florida is the first state to take action, what sort of precedent does this set for others?
Target is a massive company with plenty of other investors — state pensions or otherwise — that will feel inspired by Uthmeier’s work accompanied by the America First Legal Foundation.
The foundation’s press release can be read here, which includes a link to the lawsuit.
If other states were to take up a similar cause and file suit, Target might be looking at a day of reckoning.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
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