(FORTUNE Magazine) – An affirmative-action program at the Columbia Law Review that goes far beyond similar plans at other student legal publications . . . will set aside up to five extra places on its enlarged staff of 40. In selecting those students, preference will be given to gay, handicapped, and poor applicants, as well as women and members of minority groups . . . Although other law reviews have such programs, the Columbia plan is the broadest because it reaches beyond race, the editors said . . . Michael Beeman, editor in chief of the Columbia Law Review and the major proponent of the affirmative action plan, said it was meant to rectify years of exclusion of minorities and others . . . Mr. Beeman said that he did not have a firm count of the number of homosexuals at the law school or . . . conclusive evidence of past discrimination. -- From a news report in the New York Times.