The Law School this week made its first-ever tenure offer to a Black junior professor, faculty members said yesterday.

Assistant Professor Christopher F. Edley Jr., an expert on administrative law, will likely become the fourth tenured Black in the school's history.

The appointments of Edley, who worked for the Carter Administration, and Assistant Professor Daniel J. Meltzer now await routine approval from the Corporation's Joint Committee on Appointments.

Edley, who was unavailable for comment yesterday, would join Professor of Law Derek Bell as the only Blacks on the 60-person senior faculty.

Bell yesterday described the situation for Black faculty as "clearly better than it has been," but added that the faculty still lacks minority representation despite a "a serious effort" by Dean James Vorenberg '49 to recruit minorities.

Edley became the Law School's first Black junior faculy member five years ago, and two other Black assistant professors have since joined him. Assistant professors, who occupy "tenure track" positions, almost always receive lifetime promotions.

Bell cited other schools with better recruiting records, particularly Georgetown, with five tenure Black law faculty.

"We should be leading the pack," he said.

Sacrificial Victim?

With the promotion of Louis Kaplow last month, the faculty has approved the first three junior faculty candidates in this year's tenure season.

Three evaluations of "tenure-tracked" professors remain for this year, for Richard H. Fallon Jr., and two critical legal studies (CLS) advocates, Randall Kennedy and Clare Dalton.

Last year's tenure season concluded with the denial of tenure for Thayer Lecturer of Law Daniel J. Tarullo, an affiliate of the radical CLS movement, marking the first in-house rejection in 17 years.

After that decision Tarullo said, "I hope that I am a sacrificial victim, rather than the first of a purge."

Bell felt optimistic about the prospects of this year's candidates, because "the faculty is a little wiser, and a little more humble about what it is we are doing."