The case was written using research from published, secondary sources, including news reports, corporate statements and public social media accounts from the parties involved.
Days away from the start date of June 2023’s Pride Month, the annual celebration of the LGBTQ+ community, Eric Carnell (he/him), a small business owner in the fashion industry, found himself navigating the fallout of an unanticipated press release. Following months of planning and meetings with executives from the US-based retailer Target, Carnell unexpectedly learned that all of his designs solicited for inclusion in the company’s Pride Collection had been pulled from Target’s in-store and online displays. While Target executives cited employee safety concerns as the reason, many other items in the Pride Collection remained on sale. Through the case, students explore the complex interplay between diversity management strategies and the resulting perceptions of corporate allyship through the perspective of Carnell, as he questions the true definition of allyship in the context of the fallout from Target.
The case is designed for use at the undergraduate level. The learning objectives are particularly relevant for stand-alone courses on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), such as Managing Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace. Given the topical nature of diversity management, wokeness and criticisms of DEI, this case could also be used successfully in more generalized human resource management or management classes.The case was classroom tested in the spring 2025 semester in a senior-level, in-person, stand-alone diversity course for business undergraduates. Students said the case was easy to understand and contained sufficient information within the narrative and exhibits to respond to the questions posed. Students were distracted by two of the exhibits included in earlier versions of the case and expressed some misunderstanding regarding the images generated via artificial intelligence and posted by Facebook users. As a result of this feedback, two exhibits were deleted and narrative descriptions regarding the images generated via artificial intelligence were clarified.
