Two sneaker giants sit on the same wall at every shoe store in America, and they give completely opposite answers to the same question. Nike scores 75/100 on the BuyWokeFree Woke Score — extremely woke. New Balance scores 20/100 — mildly woke, and one of the lowest scores any household-name athletic brand carries. That is a 55-point gap between two brands your kids ask for by name.
Here is what is actually behind those numbers, including the federal discrimination investigation that has turned Nike into the test case for whether corporate DEI programs are legal at all.
Nike vs New Balance: The Scores at a Glance
- Nike — 75/100 (Extremely Woke). Comprehensive ESG reporting, formal DEI programs now under federal investigation, active Pride sponsorship, roughly 75% of PAC money to Democrats, and a CEO Action for Diversity pledge.
- New Balance — 20/100 (Mildly Woke). Privately held, no Pride campaigns, no perfect HRC score, and a chairman who is one of the largest Republican donors in American retail.
Nike: 75/100 and the Charge Nobody Filed
Nike is the more decorated brand and, by our criteria, by far the more political one. The headline development is not a boycott. It is a federal investigation.
A complaint no employee ever made
On May 24, 2024, then-EEOC Commissioner Andrea Lucas — now the agency chair — filed a commissioner's charge against Nike alleging a pattern or practice of intentional race discrimination against white employees, applicants, and training-program participants. The detail that makes this extraordinary: no Nike employee filed the complaint. A commissioner's charge is initiated by the agency itself, unlike the vast majority of EEOC cases, which begin with a worker walking through the door. The charge followed a letter from America First Legal urging the agency to act.
Lucas cited Nike's own published commitments — a goal to fill 30% of US director-level-and-above positions and 35% of its total US corporate workforce with racial and ethnic minority employees by 2025, along with tying some compensation to DEI metrics. In other words, the evidence against Nike is Nike's own diversity reporting.
The settlement that got pulled
Nike nearly closed the matter. The company and the EEOC reached a confidential settlement — and then the agency reversed itself. On February 19, 2025, Nike learned the EEOC had reassigned the investigation to a different office and unilaterally rescinded the agreement, as reported by Fast Company. On February 4, 2026, the EEOC filed a petition in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri to enforce an administrative subpoena, and a judge ordered Nike to show cause the following week. Nike has argued the subpoena is overly broad, unduly burdensome, and largely time-barred. Bloomberg Law has described the probe as a test case for the agency's broader campaign against corporate DEI.
To be clear about what this is and is not: these are allegations. No court has ruled that Nike discriminated against anyone, and Nike disputes the scope of the investigation. But when the most decorated diversity program in footwear becomes the government's chosen vehicle for testing whether such programs are lawful, that tells you how far the ground has shifted.
Pride, politics, and a perfect 100
Nike earned a perfect 100 and an Equality 100 Award on the Human Rights Campaign's 2026 Corporate Equality Index — one of 534 companies to do so in a year when Fortune 500 participation in that survey collapsed by roughly 65%. Nike stayed. It continues the Be True collection and the No Pride No Sport campaign. Stack that on the Kaepernick campaign in 2018, the Betsy Ross sneaker pulled in July 2019, a $40 million racial-equity pledge in 2020, and the April 2023 Dylan Mulvaney partnership, and the pattern runs a full decade deep.
New Balance: 20/100 and the Power of Staying Private
Ownership is the whole story
New Balance is privately held and Boston-based, owned and chaired by Jim Davis, who bought the company in 1972. Private ownership matters more than any slogan: New Balance answers to its owners and its customers, not to activist funds or ESG-ratings firms that pressure public companies into political posturing.
Davis is also one of retail's most significant Republican donors. He gave $500,000 to the Senate Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC, on October 22, 2024. That single line moves a Woke Score further than any marketing campaign ever could.
The American-made record
New Balance operates six athletic-footwear factories in the United States and the United Kingdom, and applies the Made-in-USA label only where domestic value is at least 70%. In 2024 the company reported contributing $3.1 billion to the US economy, up 23% year over year, with $479 million tied directly to its American-made operations — on record global sales of roughly $7.8 billion, a 20% jump over the prior year. For shoppers who care about American jobs, that record does most of the talking.
Why it is not a zero
New Balance is not a protest brand, and we do not pretend otherwise. It publishes a Sustainability and Impact Report and maintains an Empowering People DE&I platform. What it does not do is run Pride campaigns or chase a perfect HRC score, and it openly frames inclusion work as market strategy rather than politics. That combination — modest ESG reporting plus a maintained DE&I platform — is exactly what keeps it at 20 instead of 0.
Where the Gap Actually Opens
Across our six criteria, these two brands are comparable on exactly one: both do some ESG reporting. Everything else splits hard.
- DEI programs: Nike's are formal, target-driven, and under federal investigation. New Balance maintains a platform without public numerical hiring targets.
- Pride sponsorship: Nike runs Be True and No Pride No Sport. New Balance runs none.
- HRC Corporate Equality Index: Nike holds a perfect 100. New Balance does not compete for one.
- Political giving: Nike's PAC directs roughly 75% or more to Democrats. New Balance's chairman writes six-figure checks to Republican committees.
- CEO Action for Diversity: Nike signed the pledge. New Balance did not.
The Verdict: New Balance, by 55 Points
This one is not close. New Balance at 20/100 is the clear pick for shoppers who do not want their sneaker money underwriting corporate activism — and it is the rare case where the woke-free option is also the American-made option and the household name. You are not trading down to a boutique startup to make a point.
For context in the same aisle, Lululemon scores 68/100 and Patagonia scores 30/100. Nike at 75 sits above both.
One honest caveat: 20 is not 0. If your standard is a brand with no DE&I platform whatsoever, New Balance will not clear it. If your standard is a major athletic brand that stays out of the culture war and puts money back into American factories, it is the strongest option on the wall.
Where This Leaves You
Nike spent a decade making its diversity program the loudest in the industry. That program is now Exhibit A in a federal case that lawyers on both sides expect to shape DEI law for years. New Balance spent the same decade staying private, building shoes in Massachusetts and Maine, and saying very little. Two strategies, two scores, 55 points apart.
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