The American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAER), under the leadership of conservative legal activist Edward Blum, recently dropped its lawsuit against leading law firm Morrison & Foerster (MoFo). This judicial development came after MoFo amended its diversity fellowship eligibility criteria, which AAER had previously denounced as reverse discriminatory.
AAER initiated legal proceedings against MoFo in August, raising concerns about the wording in the 2024 1L Keith Wetmore Fellowship for Excellence, Diversity and Inclusion application. The contention sprang from MoFo’s prior requirement that this fellowship was exclusively designed for law students who belong to historically underrepresented groups in the legal profession.
However, in a turn of events, the lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed by AAER after MoFo updated the fellowship’s requisites. Consequently, the law firm agreed to eliminate the prerequisite of being a member of a historically underrepresented group among its eligibility criteria for earning the diversity fellowship.