Earlier this month, Charlotte-based Bank of America was hit with $150 million in fines and ordered to repay more than $100 million to American customers who placed their trust in that institution. The megabank was found to have illegally withheld credit card rewards, double-dipped by allowing fees to be repeatedly charged for the same transaction, and applied for and enrolled consumers in credit card accounts without their knowledge or authorization.

But this may be just the tip of the iceberg.

The recent behavior of the company, which wraps itself in the flag using the colors of Old Glory in its logo and invokes our nation in its name, can be called anything but patriotic. If there were truth in advertising, it should be called Bank of UnAmerica.

Under CEO Brian Moynihan, the bank has adopted something similar to communist China’s social credit system and blacklist, under which the behavior of its citizens and companies is monitored and assigned a social credit score. In China, punishment for low scores may include revoked travel privileges, higher taxes, or reduced access to financial services.

Adopting it for use in America, Moynihan’s Bank of America uses arbitrary ESG metrics to potentially lock individuals and businesses out of key banking services. Banks “shouldn’t do business with” people who disagree with woke ESG, Moynihan declared at January’s World Economic Forum held in Switzerland. Remember, ESG is “about forcing behaviors,” as Moynihan’s climate action colleague and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink put it.

In addition to contributing toward multibillion-dollar anti-energy lobbying efforts, Bank of America has closely coordinated with the United Nations Net Zero Alliance climate cartel to deny financing to oil and gas company products. The efforts to impose its woke climate ideology are having a crippling impact on domestic energy production and are forcing struggling families to endure higher utility prices at home and higher fuel prices at the pump. Bank of America is even attempting to control what consumers eat by steering investments away from “carbon intensive” livestock, such as beef, and toward “plant-based meat alternatives.”

In a thuggish abuse of its market power and vast resources, Moynihan is playing Big Brother by forcing woke social agendas on Americans. For example, Bank of America has shut off loans to certain firearms manufacturers in an effort to deny constitutionally guaranteed Second Amendment rights. Meanwhile, its employees are lectured in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training programs that the United States is a racist nation that is built on “white supremacy.”

The woke behavior does not stop at DEI practices, following the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, Bank of America announced that it will reimburse employees’ travel expenses associated with out-of-state abortions. But past lawsuits point to internal practices that are more anti-mother than pro-women. The woke mega-bank was sued by former teller Melania Soto in 2013 after her branch manager told her to “have an abortion” or “give the baby up for adoption.” Bank of America was sued again in 2018 by a former employee over allegations of racial, religious, and pregnancy discrimination, as well as wrongful termination.

They can call themselves Bank of America, but these woke policies remind us that Moynihan and his commitment to ESG practices and far-left, socialist policy agendas undermine America at every turn. That’s why Consumers’ Research is putting Bank of America on notice to start serving their customers and not woke politicians. The campaign features two national television ads (which you can see here and here) as well as mobile billboards in deployed in Charlotte and in cities across the country to inform hardworking Americans that Bank of UnAmerica’s lies start with their name.  

Will Hild is the executive director of Consumers’ Research, the nation’s oldest consumer protection organization