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The Indiana attorney general is leading an effort aimed at putting retailer Target on notice over its LGBTQ Pride merchandise. The letter could be a problem for the office as it may be discriminatory, said IU McKinney Professor Jennifer Drobac. She discussed the issue in a story for the Indianapolis Star.

There was backlash against the Pride items among conservatives and the company’s stock price dropped after that. Indiana government employees are invested in Target Corporation. The Indiana AG’s office, in a letter signed by other states’ attorneys general, details the states’ concerns. The letter accuses the company’s leadership of negligence, cites state obscenity laws, calls the Pride items “potentially harmful to minors.” The letter also outlines objections to a brand that is purported to have designed items that could be labeled as Satanic and anti-Christian.

The letter singles out LGBTQ identities and a religion, Satanism, both of which are protected classes under federal law and Professor Drobac said she believes it opens the attorneys general who signed it to legal challenges. The Indiana attorney general in particular may have opened himself to complaints to the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission as Indiana’s Rules of Professional Conduct indicate an attorney may not "by words or conduct, bias or prejudice based upon race, gender, religion, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, age, socioeconomic status, or similar factors."

"What he’s doing is targeting particular segments of our population for public disdain," Professor Drobac said in the story. "And that’s dangerous."

Professor Drobac is a widely known expert in family law as well as sexual harassment law. She also participates in the Indiana University Campus Insights Project with the Associated Press. She is frequently consulted for her expertise regarding civil rights and sexual harassment and assault by media sources throughout the world. She is an author of the textbook, Sexual Harassment Law: History, Cases and Practice, recently published by Carolina Academic Press. She co-authored the book with Professor Carrie N. Baker of Smith College and Professor Rigel C. Oliveri of the University of Missouri School of Law.  Professor Drobac is at work on her next book, The Myth of Consent, which is under contract with Cambridge University Press. That work will explore the neuroscience of adult decision making and how the science should influence law reform, particularly the law of consent. She is a Samuel R. Rosen Professor of Law.