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.
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 LLPCovington & 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
- ABA Journal, Pipeline Internship Program Used by Prestigious Law Firms Discriminates Based on Race, Group Contends
- Bloomberg Law, EEOC Asked to Probe Claims of Bias in Law Firm Intern Program
- Law360, BigLaw Student Fellowship Faces Discrimination Charge
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