Ed Blum’s Anti-DEI Group Takes Aim at ABA Diversity Scholarship

The American Alliance for Equal Rights is suing the American Bar Association over a diversity scholarship.

The anti-DEI legal group alleges that the ABA’s Legal Opportunity Scholarship practices racial discrimination, according to an April 12 complaint.

“The ABA’s scholarship thus rests on racial stereotypes, using whiteness as a proxy for advantage and minority status as a proxy for disadvantage,” the complaint said. The ABA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The move builds on President Donald Trump’s federal anti-DEI push and a steady rise in private litigation targeting diversity initiatives at law firms and bar associations following the Supreme Court’s June 2023 decision to curb the use of affirmative action in college admissions.

The group, led by affirmative action foe Edward Blum, also sued law firms Perkins Coie and Morrison Foerster over their diversity fellowships. The lawsuits were dropped after the firms changed the eligibility criteria for its programs.

“The leadership of the ABA must certainly have been aware of the many lawsuits that have been filed successfully challenging race-exclusive law firm internship and fellowships programs,” Blum said in a statement. “That the ABA hasn’t ended their minority-only scholarship should distress the entire membership.”

The alliance is being represented by attorneys at Virginia-founded boutique Consovoy McCarthy, including Thomas McCarthy, Cameron Norris and Matt Pociask and Gabriel Anderson.

The complaint also touched on the ABA’s temporarily suspended a diversity mandate for law schools and an ABA judicial clerkship program that another anti-DEI group targeted with US Justice and Education departments complaints in May of last year. The ABA loosened the program’s diversity, equity and inclusion requirements in response.

The scholarship offers $15,000 to 20-25 first-year law students who are members of underrepresented racial or ethnic minority groups, according to its application. The application period for 2025 recipients closes April 15.

The case is American Alliance for Equal Rights v. American Bar Association, N.D. Ill., No. 1:25-cv-03980, complaint 4/12/25