An anti-DEI advocacy group said on Thursday that it has asked the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to investigate a long-running fellowship program that places students in positions at major law firms.
Americans for Equal Opportunity alleged that New York-based nonprofit Sponsors for Educational Opportunity engaged in false advertising and unlawful labor practices through its legal fellowship program with 15 partner law firms.
The group asked the FTC in an August 12 complaint to investigate SEO and "participating employers."
An SEO spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The organization runs fellowship programs that place recent college grads in internships at Wall Street banks, law offices and other companies.
Filing a complaint with the FTC does not automatically trigger an investigation from the agency, which can act on complaints or launch an investigation on its own.
A spokesperson for the FTC declined to comment.
The complaint mirrors a similar filing Americans for Equal Opportunity lodged with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last month, alleging SEO and 14 law firms discriminated against white, straight, Christian applicants.
The group, which advocates against diversity, equity and inclusion policies, alleged in its complaint to the FTC that SEO facilitates anti-competitive activity and misleads law firms about how it chooses its students for its Law Fellowship program.
SEO tells firms that they are picking low-income, first-generation "underserved" students for its fellowship, when they are actually chosen for their race and ethnicity, the complaint said.
The FTC has emerged as a focal point in President Donald Trump's quest to end DEI initiatives in the legal industry. In January, the federal agency warned 42 law firms that their DEI hiring practices could be unfair and anticompetitive.
In June, Diversity Lab, a legal industry consulting firm focused on boosting gender and race employment practices in law firms and corporate legal departments, closed down amid an FTC investigation.
Americans for Equal Opportunity in its complaint to the FTC said SEO and its program "have the same problems" as Diversity Lab did.
"The FTC is right: DEI programs create competition concerns,” Clegg Ivey, president of Americans for Equal Opportunity, said in a statement.
The group said 15 law firms — Alston & Bird, Cooley, Covington & Burling, Cravath, Debevoise & Plimpton, Foley Hoag, Jones Day, Morgan Lewis, Patterson Belknap, Proskauer Rose, Quinn Emanuel, Wachtell, White & Case, Williams & Connolly and WilmerHale — accepted interns from SEO's Law Fellowship program in 2026.
Spokespersons for the law firms did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
