AEO v. SEO (and Sponsor Law Firms)
May 12, 2025:
New Civil Rights Group Files Federal Discrimination Complaint Alleging Racial Bias in Elite Law Fellowship Program
Washington, D.C. — Americans for Equal Opportunity (AEO), a civil rights membership organization, announced today that it has filed a formal Charge of Discrimination with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) against Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO) and 44 of the nation’s largest law firms.
The SEO Law Fellowship is the legal industry’s largest so-called “diversity pipeline” program, providing paid summer internships at the 44 prestigious law firms to nearly 200 incoming law students each year. AEO alleges that the program unlawfully discriminates on the basis of race, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
AEO filed the complaint on behalf of several members who were rejected from the 2025 SEO Law Fellowship despite meeting or exceeding all academic and professional qualifications. According to AEO, these applicants were excluded because they do not belong to the racial or ethnic groups preferred by SEO and its partner firms—namely, Black, Hispanic, or Native American applicants.
“This is systemic discrimination, plain and simple,” said AEO Board President Clegg Ivey. “SEO and its 44 partner law firms have built a racially exclusive hiring track that locks out qualified students based on the color of their skin. That’s not diversity—that’s unlawful discrimination.”
The complaint describes SEO as both a staffing agency and a joint employer that works on behalf of these law firms to implement race-based selection processes aimed at satisfying racial quotas and diversity targets. According to AEO, SEO recruits, screens, and selects roughly 200 Fellows each year and places them directly into paid summer positions at the firms, which can pay over $4,000 per week. Often, the firms themselves do not conduct their own independent HR evaluations of candidates.
“Law firms use SEO to bypass traditional merit-based hiring,” Ivey continued. “They outsource the selection process to a nonprofit organization that openly discriminates on their behalf, and they reward that discrimination with lucrative internship and job offers—often before students have received a single law school grade. Not only do they discriminate, they do it through a tax-exempt organization and treat it like a charitable contribution.”
The charge further asserts that many of the Fellowship’s participants are ultimately fast-tracked into otherwise competitive, full-time, permanent positions at the Sponsor Firms, often receiving offers to join the firm as an employee and bonuses not available to similarly situated law students of disfavored racial backgrounds, who must have top academic credentials to secure a job offer. (Entry-level positions at the Sponsor Firms pay a minimum of $220,000 per year before bonuses.)
AEO contends that both SEO and the Sponsor Firms are liable for unlawful discrimination, arguing that the program violates the Civil Rights Act’s prohibitions on race-based hiring by both employment agencies and employers.
Participating Law Firms:
Allen Overy Shearman Sterling LLP
Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld LLP
Alston & Bird
Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP
Clifford Chance LLP
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP
Cooley LLP
Covington & Burling LLP
Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP
Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP
Debevoise & Plimpton LLP
Foley Hoag LLP
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP
Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Goodwin Procter LLP
Hogan Lovells US LLP
Jenner & Block LLP
Jones Day LLP
Katten Muchin Rosenman
Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP
Latham & Watkins LLP
Mayer Brown LLP
McDermott Will & Emery LLP
Milbank LLP
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
Morrison & Foerster LLP
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP
Proskauer Rose LLP
Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP
Ropes & Gray LLP
Sidley Austin LLP
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
Vinson & Elkins LLP
Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz
Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
White & Case LLP
Williams & Connolly LLP
Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP
About AEO:
Americans for Equal Opportunity is a nonprofit legal and advocacy organization committed to defending the principle of equal treatment under the law. AEO works to eliminate racial discrimination in education, employment, and public policy through litigation and public awareness efforts.
Contact:
Americans for Equal Opportunity
1901 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Suite 900, PMB 26
Washington D.C. 20006