Corporate America is Changing, and ADF is Leading the Way

It’s no secret that corporate America has gone all-in on woke policies in recent years. For the better part of a decade, companies have danced to the tune of progressive activists by aligning themselves with ideologies like divisive and discriminatory “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) programs or radical gender ideology. Meanwhile, mainstream conservatives and Christians have faced the specter of cancellation by major banks, social media platforms, and more.

But the momentum is shifting in corporate America—thanks in no small part to Alliance Defending Freedom’s corporate engagement and shareholder work.

On top of that, recent landmark rulings on DEI and gender ideology at the U.S. Supreme Court have given businesses even more motivation to ditch divisive politics and recommit themselves to serving every American consumer, employee, and shareholder with excellence.

Companies are scrambling to save face with the American public and a presidential administration openly committed to rooting out ideological commitments undermining the God-given freedoms protected by the First Amendment.

ADF’s Viewpoint Diversity Score Enters Year Five

By God’s providence, Alliance Defending Freedom is fully prepared to meet the moment.

This August, we launched the fifth edition of our Viewpoint Diversity Score Business Index—the premier benchmark for measuring corporate respect for free speech and religious liberty. In our 2026 Index, we scored 150 companies in the finance, tech, software, and social media industries, comparing corporate policies and behavior to the constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of every American. And this tool is available for you to use at the redesigned ViewpointDiversityScore.org, where you can see exactly what policies are driving change from one year to the next at these companies.

The Index is more than just a diagnostic tool, however. It exposes the very corporate policies that empower censorship and discrimination. These policies become the targets of our multi-levered strategy: shareholder engagement, strategic legislation, and, when necessary, litigation.

But as the Viewpoint Diversity Score Business Index shows, not all companies and their policies need to be targeted. Insperity led this year’s Index with a top overall score of 67 percent, and seven other companies scored above 50 percent—East West Bancorp, Cullen/Frost Bankers, Bank of America, Palantir Technologies, Progressive Insurance, and Euronet Worldwide among them. That spread matters. These aren’t companies from a single industry or region; they range from a Texas-based HR services firm to regional banks to a Silicon Valley software company. Their scores show that strong protections for free speech and religious freedom aren’t a niche position reserved for one type of business—they’re achievable across very different sectors of the economy, without sacrificing profitability or growth.

“Corporate America is finally starting to reckon with the cost of vague policies that leave customers, employees, and charities exposed to viewpoint discrimination,” said ADF Senior Counsel and Senior Vice President of the Counter Censorship Task Force Jeremy Tedesco. “Insperity and the other leaders on this year’s Index prove that clear, enforceable protections for free speech and religious freedom are entirely compatible with running a successful business. We look forward to productive conversations with the rest of corporate America, providing actionable data and model policies to help them protect their employees and customers from censorship and viewpoint discrimination.”

A Growing Track Record of Victory

Our strategy is yielding major results. Leveraging our Index findings, legal expertise, and related shareholder proxy work this year, we have secured over 55 policy and behavioral changes at the largest companies in the country on debanking, deplatforming, DEI, and religious liberty in the workforce. That’s more than double last year’s 22 policy changes. ADF attorneys leveraged these Index findings and recommendations when they met with companies to make these crucial changes, and all were secured with the help of our coalition of like-minded shareholder advocates.

Our work with JPMorgan Chase is a perfect example of the impact we can have. After Chase debanked the National Committee for Religious Freedom in 2022, ADF worked with David Bahnsen to file a shareholder resolution asking for transparency on debanking. At the same time, we worked with investors and over two dozen state attorneys general and treasurers to draw national attention to the matter.

This led to ongoing engagement between ADF and Chase, which subsequently removed its vague and easily weaponized “social risk” policy for payment processing. Chase also added a promise to the first sentence of its 2023 climate report to affirm it “provides financial services for individuals and industries across geographies—regardless of political, social or religious viewpoints.”

That was only the beginning. Later, during negotiations over another ADF-sponsored shareholder resolution, Chase agreed to update its code of conduct to expressly prohibit political and religious viewpoint discrimination against any of Chase’s customers, employees, suppliers, and contractors.

This bold move from a respected industry leader like Chase has already prompted other financial institutions to adopt similar protections. And we hope it will continue to do so. No one should have to worry that they’ll lose access to their bank account, their insurance, or the public square because of their religious or political views.

Capital One offers a newer, equally telling example—one that shows the shift isn’t limited to banking policy, but extends to which advocacy groups companies choose to align with in the first place. This year, Capital One confirmed it is no longer a sponsor of the Human Rights Campaign or a participant in its Corporate Equality Index, the scorecard many companies once treated as a mandatory box to check. Capital One’s exit is part of a broader wave: Meta, American Express, PNC Bank, Delta, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin have all stepped back from that same program in recent years.

Here’s a snapshot of other accomplishments from this year:

• Seven companies—Bank of America, Dell Technologies, JPMorgan Chase, Meta, Microsoft, NCR Atleos, and Popular—disclosed strong protections for vendors against religious or ideological discrimination.
• Bank of America, BlackRock, AT&T, Regions, Mastercard, NVIDIA, Meta, Wells Fargo, Salesforce, and Microsoft agreed to remove religious exclusions, drop reliance on the now-indicted SPLC’s “hate list,” or adopt equal charitable criteria.
• East West Bancorp ditched vague language in terms of service agreements that put customers and vendors at risk; 10 other companies earned full marks for the same category.
• Mastercard, Texas Instruments, and Salesforce removed the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “hate list” as a screening tool from employee charitable-giving programs.

Together, our partners represent numerous and diverse religious denominations, institutions, and everyday Americans. They are united by the common belief that businesses and our country do best when companies do not take partisan stances on divisive political issues but instead focus on providing excellent goods and services while respecting the fundamental values that have built our nation. This allows companies to best innovate, attract the widest pools of talent, and serve the broadest possible customer base.

The Momentum is Real—And We’re Just Getting Started

The cultural winds are changing. The Trump administration has taken aim at many of the issues that animate our work. The legal landscape is rightly becoming more hostile to discriminatory DEI ideology that treats some people worse than others based on skin color or sex. States such as Tennessee and Idaho have adopted our model legislation to protect against discriminatory debanking.

Many companies are waking up to the harms caused by politicizing their businesses and are enacting policies that respect the diverse religious and political views of their customers, employees, business partners, and shareholders.

The companies we all rely on every day for banking, insurance, technology, and more have enormous influence over whether Americans can speak, have access to financial services, and do business according to their convictions. The Index gives investors, employees, and customers the receipts. I’m hopeful that companies continue on the trendlines we’re seeing, cutting ties with groups that openly advocate for censorship and religious discrimination and adopting policies that respect the God-given freedoms of every employee and customer. And what a privilege it is to play a role in that change.

But there is much more work to be done, as detailed in the 2026 Index Report. “Hate speech,” “intolerance,” and “misinformation” policies that create systemic risks of viewpoint discrimination are still widespread. 77% of companies (115 out of 150) in the 2026 Index continue to rely on vague or subjective service policies that could easily pave the way for cancellations, deplatforming, or debanking—all based on a customer’s viewpoint. While some companies are ditching DEI, others are rebranding it. And many companies still support hyper-partisan organizations like the Human Rights Campaign and fail to treat their religious employees equally when it comes to workplace culture.

The fight is far from over. But with a growing number of partners and a track record of success, including securing policy changes at the biggest bank in the nation, we are confident that deeper partnerships and more astonishing wins lie ahead.