Americans for Equal Opportunity asked the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday to investigate Sponsors for Educational Opportunity over its Law Fellowship. The group said SEO misrepresented the program to sponsor firms and described its request as one over “potential false advertising practices.”
The complaint lands as the fellowship faces scrutiny over who it has selected and how SEO has described the program. SEO said in a 2024 presentation that the fellowship was designed to “support low-income, first-generation, and underserved individuals” by giving them industry exposure.
SEO Law Fellowship
SEO had already told sponsor firms in a PowerPoint presentation that the SEO Law Fellowship had always been “open to applicants from all racial and ethnic backgrounds.” It also said the fellowship would be framed in exclusively socioeconomic terms going forward, a shift that matters because the program had been operating as a diversity fellowship placing underrepresented law students at white-shoe firms the summer before their 1L year.
The later presentations gave the fellowship a narrower pitch. Americans for Equal Opportunity used that contrast in asking the Federal Trade Commission to examine whether SEO’s statements to firms violated consumer protection laws.
Kristin Santana and other fellows
The fellowship roster cited in the complaint complicates SEO’s public description. Kristin Santana interned at Simpson Thacher and worked full-time as a paralegal at Davis Polk before joining SEO, and she attended Loomis Chaffee, which costs between $60,000 and 80,000 a year.
Makira Burns held full-time posts at Latham & Watkins and Sidley Austin before SEO placed her at Debevoise & Plimpton. Iannelis Ramdhany Correa graduated from Phillips Andover Academy and spent two years at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler before a placement at White & Case.
Americans for Equal Opportunity filing
Americans for Equal Opportunity’s filing draws a line from those backgrounds to the fellowship’s stated purpose. The group argued that SEO misrepresented the program to sponsor firms, and the complaint targets whether a fellowship marketed as serving low-income, first-generation, and underserved individuals was presented that way in practice.
The Federal Trade Commission has not been said to have taken a public step in response, so the filing is the immediate procedural move. For the reader watching the program’s selection standards, the unresolved issue is simple: how many fellows actually met SEO’s socioeconomic criteria, and what rules did SEO use when it chose them?
