Dr. Helfand said groups representing African-American, Hispanic or elderly patients were right to argue that they were underrepresented in clinical trials.
African-Americans argued then that they were underrepresented among the high scorers, and the city never certified the results, so the promotions were never granted.
The council ruled that the constitution-drafting commission should be directly elected, perhaps as a sop to easterners who argued that they were underrepresented by the previously proposed allocation of seats in the commission.
Thus, the new equality thrust went beyond establishing equal opportunity to providing compensatory measures, even though they sometimes limited free choice as, for example, in the use of sex quotas to bring women or men into occupations where they were underrepresented.
But he added that he took pains to include criticisms of the Reuthers, showing blacks in the 1960s protesting that they were underrepresented in the union's hierarchy and complaints that Walter purged many Communists who had played an important role in building the union.
The court case stems from objections lodged by animal activists, who felt they were underrepresented on an academy panel that revised an animal-care guide for lab researchers.
