While 2025 and 2026 turned into one long corporate retreat from DEI — companies quietly scrubbing diversity pages, renaming programs, and slipping out of the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index — one iconic American brand did the opposite. It dug in. Levi Strauss & Co. not only kept every diversity program intact, its shareholders voted overwhelmingly to protect them. That's why the 172-year-old denim maker earns a flawless 100/100 on the BuyWokeFree Woke Scale — a perfect score on all six of our criteria. Here's the breakdown.
The 100/100 Scorecard: Six for Six
Our score isn't a vibe. It's built from six research-based dimensions: ESG reporting, DEI programs, Pride sponsorships, the HRC Corporate Equality Index rating, political contributions to left-leaning causes, and executive diversity activism. Levi's maxes out every single one.
1. ESG Reporting
Levi's publishes detailed sustainability and ESG disclosures, complete with emissions targets, "diversity, equity and inclusion" metrics baked into its corporate reporting, and the full alphabet soup of stakeholder-capitalism commitments. This is the paperwork backbone of the woke corporation, and Levi's files it religiously.
2. DEI Programs
The company runs employee resource groups, a supplier-diversity program, and diversity-conscious hiring and promotion practices. When a conservative think tank formally asked the company to scrap all of it in 2025, Levi's board didn't blink — more on that below.
3. Pride Sponsorships
Levi's has been a fixture of Pride season for years, sponsoring parades, releasing annual Pride collections, and routing a share of proceeds to LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations. While brands like Target spent 2025 trying to thread the needle on Pride merchandise, Levi's never flinched.
4. HRC Corporate Equality Index
According to our scorecard, Levi's has posted top-tier scores on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index for roughly two decades running. The CEI is the activist scorecard that grades companies on LGBTQ+ policy and advocacy — and a perfect rating only comes from going all-in. As Walt Disney (80/100) learned the hard way, even staying in the CEI has become a political statement.
5. Left-Leaning Political Spending
Corporate and PAC-adjacent giving from Levi's and its foundation has flowed heavily toward progressive causes, including gun-control advocacy — the company launched a "Safer Tomorrow Fund" and has been one of the most openly anti-Second-Amendment apparel brands in America.
6. Executive Diversity Activism
Levi's leadership has been vocal — not quiet — about its diversity commitments, publicly defending DEI as a "strong business case" even as the political winds shifted hard the other way.
The 2025 Vote That Says It All
Here's the moment that separates Levi's from the dozens of companies faking their "rollbacks." At its April 2025 annual meeting, the National Center for Public Policy Research — the same conservative think tank that filed near-identical proposals at Apple (100/100), Costco Wholesale (45/100), and Disney — asked Levi's shareholders to end the company's DEI program, including its employee resource groups and supplier-diversity initiative, and to stop weighing race and gender in hiring and promotion.
Levi's management recommended a vote against the proposal. And shareholders obliged in a landslide: as reported by Women's Wear Daily and ESG Dive, less than 1% of voting shares backed scrapping DEI. Translation — more than 99% of Levi's investors voted to keep the whole woke apparatus. The board called diversity "critical in ensuring that our products reflect and are relevant to our diverse global consumer base." This wasn't a company forced into wokeness by a noisy minority. This was a shareholder base that looked at the 2025 anti-DEI wave and said: no thanks.
"Go Woke, Go Broke" — Or Just Go Elsewhere
Levi's has every right to run its business however it likes. And you have every right to put your $80 somewhere that isn't funding Pride parades, gun-control PACs, and a permanent perch on the HRC's activist scorecard. The good news: the woke-free denim and workwear market has never been deeper.
Our database tracks dozens of American apparel makers that score in the single digits on the Woke Scale. Brands like Outlaw Gear (1/100), Patriots Apparel (2/100), and We Hold Fast (3/100) build rugged, made-for-Americans gear without lecturing you at checkout. For a full shopping list, see our roundup of the best woke-free jeans and denim brands of 2026 and browse the complete patriotic clothing category.
The Bottom Line
A lot of corporations spent the last two years performing a DEI retreat for the cameras while keeping the machinery running behind the curtain. Levi Strauss didn't even bother with the performance. It told the world, on the record and by shareholder vote, that it's keeping all of it. That honesty is almost refreshing — and it makes Levi's 100/100 the easiest score we've ever assigned. If your dollars have an opinion, now you know exactly where Levi's stands.