This paper examines the legal responsibility of networks to fairly represent outsiders in network employment and programming. The outsiders--women, racial and ethnic minorities, homosexuals, older people, members of minor political parties--have been using legal avenues provided by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as means of affecting the networks. But recent events, such as requests by minor candidates for equal time in the 1972 and 1976 elections, demonstrate the FCC's inability to regulate network activities effectively, either indirectly, through the licensing of stations owned by networks, or directly, through Section 315 (the fairness doctrine and equal-time law) of the Communications Act. The paper also uses a 1975 class-action suit against the National Broadcasting Company as evidence that the EEOC is much better equipped to bring about progress than is the FCC and that a continued assault upon discrimination in employment is the most deliberate way to achieve network programming more satisfactory to outsiders, since increased membership within the system increases the likelihood that minorities will be fairly represented in network news and entertainment programs. (RL)