Two Black law students, reportedly the largest number in a single year, are among the 51 new editors the Harvard Law Review selected yesterday in the first year of the journal's affirmative action plan.

The plan, which the Review adopted last year amid heated debate, permits minority students to submit a statement of special obstacles they have faced, which is weighed in the selection process. The Review has not established quotas for minority editors.

Muhammad Kenyatta, president of the Black Law Students Association (BSLA) yesterday hailed the selection of two Blacks to the Review as "a step toward normally." The total number of Black editors on the Review staff has not exceeded four in the last five years, Kenyatta said.

"My firm hope is that this is a breakthrough and not an aberration, and that it will put to rest the issue of minorities on the Law Review," he added.

But Joseph Gracia, president of L'Alltanza, the Hispanic law students' association, questioned the role affirmative action played this year in choosing the new editors, noting that the special treatment is only one factor weighed in the selection process. "Since it's so subjective, there's really no way you can check on it," he said.

The newly elected editors include no His panic students, Garcia said.

Second-year law students are selected for the Law Review each fall either on the basis of their grades or their performance in a writing competition.

Close to the Chest

Members of the Law Review selection committee refused yesterday to discuss how much weight they gave to the personal statements. Larry Parkinson, a third-year student who chaired the committee process, said the Review "doesn't want any editor to be treated any different than anyone else."

But he added that there was "a fairly good turnout of people using the statement," and that the committee read them carefully.

The new editors also include four Asian Americans and 10 women were not permitted to submit a separate statement, but Asian-Americans were.

Most Third World Student activity strongly opposed the current affirmative action program last spring, arguing that it was still basically unfair in its emphasis on grades.

Garcia said that his group favored a system like that used by the Yale Law Review, in which anyone who submits an article worthy of publication is made an editor.

"The Law Review ought to be open, like all journals, based on participation," Kenyatta said. But he added that BSLA considered the Law Review issue less significant than other current minority concerns at the Law School.