You can switch your coffee in a morning. Your razor takes a week. Your bank takes a phone call you have been putting off for three years — and it is the one that actually matters, because your bank is the only company on your list with the power to decide you do not get to participate in the economy at all.
Washington finally said so out loud. In August 2025 the White House issued Executive Order 14331, "Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans," which defines "politicized or unlawful debanking" as restricting someone's access to financial services over their political or religious beliefs, or over lawful business a provider disfavors. It directed federal regulators to strip "reputation risk" out of their supervision manuals — the vague catch-all that let examiners frown at gun shops and conservative nonprofits — and to review institutions whose policies encouraged the practice. The OCC announced its own actions to depoliticize the federal banking system, and Treasury was given until February 3, 2026 to deliver a broader strategy.
So we ran the elimination. We pulled every bank in our banking category carrying a published woke score, lined them up worst to best, and started knocking out names. Fifteen went in. Here is how far down the list you have to go before you find one that is clean.
The Perfect Scores: Four Banks That Maxed Out Every Category
The BWF score runs 0 to 100 across six dimensions: ESG programs, DEI infrastructure, Pride sponsorships, the HRC Corporate Equality Index, political contributions, and the CEO Action for Diversity pledge. A 100 means a bank missed none of them.
JPMorgan Chase — 100/100. The nation's largest bank committed $30 billion to racial equity, sponsored Pride events for more than fifteen years, and posted perfect HRC Corporate Equality Index scores for sixteen consecutive years. In March 2025 it renamed the program: DEI became "DOI," Diversity, Opportunity and Inclusion, a change Bloomberg reported as a response to mounting political pressure. New letters, same department.
Citigroup — 100/100. Twenty-plus years of perfect Corporate Equality Index scores, extensive ESG reporting, Pride sponsorships and a CEO Action signature. Citi went further than a rename: in a February 2025 memo, CEO Jane Fraser wrote that the bank "will no longer have aspirational representation goals except as required by local law" and would "no longer require diverse slates of candidates." That is a real retreat, and we will say so. It does not erase the two decades of record the score is built on.
American Express — 100/100. Roughly $3 billion spent on DEI, a perfect 100% CEI rating, LGBTQ+ Pride sponsorships, an active political PAC and a signature on the CEO Action pledge. Every box, checked.
Fifth Third Bank — 100/100. The one nobody expects. $2.8 billion committed to racial equity, a $100 billion ESG finance target, 100% renewable energy, eight straight perfect CEI scores, and Pride sponsorship on top of all of it.
The 90s and 80s: Still Nowhere Close
U.S. Bancorp — 90/100. Seventeen consecutive years of perfect CEI scores, national HRC sponsorship, Pride debit cards, and a presence at more than fifty Pride parades a year. It scrubbed DEI language from its filings; our research found the programs still standing behind the edit.
BMO — 80/100. Two decades of Pride sponsorship, perfect HRC scores and a $300 billion sustainable finance commitment. Its concession to the moment was rebranding "diversity" to "inclusion." That is a word, not a policy.
The 70s: Where Some of the Rollback Is Real
Bank of America — 75/100. BofA did more than rename. In February 2025, Fortune reported it was scrapping workplace representation targets, and its 2025 annual report carried zero references to the company's diversity efforts, down from twelve the year before. It still lands at 75 on ESG reporting, Pride, political giving and a CEO who has led diversity councils. Credit where it is due on the retreat — the score reflects everything else.
Comerica — 75/100. ESG reporting, a Chief DEI Officer, multiple consecutive perfect CEI scores, PAC spending and CEO Action signatory status. It misses a perfect score on one technicality: we found no evidence of Pride sponsorship.
Charles Schwab — 70/100. The one a lot of conservatives assume is safe. It is not, and 70 is not close to clean.
The Middle of the List: Better, and Still Not Woke-Free
Morgan Stanley lands at 54/100 and Umpqua Bank at 45/100 — both meaningfully lower than the giants, neither one an answer.
First Republic Bank scores 30/100, and that one is a ghost: it was seized by regulators and sold to JPMorgan Chase in May 2023. Its score is a historical record, not an option you can act on. The irony writes itself — the cleanest number on this stretch of the list was absorbed by the 100/100 at the top of it.
Washington Trust Bank — 10/100. A regional bank, and genuinely low. If you live inside its footprint, it is a real answer.
Citizens Bank of Morgantown — 3/100. A small, locally owned community bank in Morgantown, West Virginia that reinvests deposits into Monongalia County instead of national activism. Our research found no ESG lending framework, no corporate DEI mandates, no Pride sponsorships, no HRC Corporate Equality Index score and no meaningful political spending. Nearly perfect — and available to almost nobody, because you have to live there.
The Last One Standing
Old Glory Bank — 1/100.
The lowest score in the entire category, and the only survivor that most Americans can actually open. Old Glory is not a startup app with a flag in the logo. It is a 120-year-old FDIC-insured chartered bank in Elmore City, Oklahoma — formerly First State Bank — rebuilt as an all-digital institution serving customers in all fifty states. Its co-founders include country artist John Rich, Dr. Ben Carson, Larry Elder and former Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin-Christensen.
Its pitch is the one thing no bank above it will put in writing. Old Glory states plainly that it "will never punish or cancel customers for their lawful activities." In a year when the federal government spent an executive order trying to stop institutions from closing accounts over politics, a bank volunteering that promise up front is not a marketing line. It is the entire product.
Checking and savings with no monthly fee, CDs, home and business lending, debit and credit cards, mobile deposit, and cash deposits at 88,000+ retailers. It is a bank. That is the point.
The Honest Read
Three banks in our category score in the single digits or low double digits, and only one is nationally available. That is the real state of American banking in 2026: the sector pushed further into corporate activism than almost any other, and the exits are narrow.
It is also true that 2025 and 2026 produced genuine retreat, and we will not pretend otherwise. Citi dropped its representation goals. Bank of America scrapped its targets and stripped the language from its annual report. JPMorgan renamed the whole program. Some of that is substance and some of it is a find-and-replace — which is exactly why we score the full record across six dimensions instead of counting press releases. A bank that deleted a webpage in February has not undone sixteen consecutive years of perfect Corporate Equality Index scores.
You do not have to move your mortgage to make a point. But the checking account your paycheck lands in every two weeks is a standing vote, and right now most Americans are casting it for a 100/100. Look up your bank, read what its score is built from, and decide whether it earned your deposit.