CBS' "60 Minutes" one-sided segment on Title IX December 1 merits a gold medal for shoddy journalism. It not only misled viewers by incorrectly stating the law in this area, but also by blatantly excluding obvious and important counter-arguments and data refuting the shallow claims of the wrestlers and their coach that Title IX is "quota" law that hurts men's sports. The report card from this professor: "F" for inaccurate news reporting that cavalierly ignored the facts.

* The segment misled viewers by wrongly asserting that the government has said that the only "surefire way to abide by Title IX" is by achieving proportionality.

Most schools do not rely on proportionality -- one of three available tests -- to demonstrate compliance. Only 21 of the 74 schools reviewed by the Office for Civil Rights between 1994 and 1998 used the proportionality test. In other words, less than one-third of the schools investigated relied on the proportionality test that "60 Minutes" characterized as "the only surefire way to abide" by the law.

A "safe harbor" is a term of art found throughout law (that is, tax law, securities law, etc.) and does not imply that other methods of compliance are somehow less "safe." Instead, it is much like rebuttable presumptions found in employment law and other areas. Some compliance tests require more analysis than others, and the choice of one method of compliance versus another is of no legal consequence.

* "60 Minutes" also allowed a wresting coach's assertion that Title IX was a "gender quota law" to go uncontested.

Every federal appeals court that has examined this issue has upheld the regulations and concluded that Title IX does not constitute reverse discrimination and is not a quota law. The United States Supreme Court even refused to hear the Brown University case, which -- although establishing no precedent -- certainly reflects that these lower appellate courts are getting the law right. In fact, it is difficult to find greater unanimity of judicial opinion on a topic than this one.

* The statement in the promotional segment that women are now receiving "the lioness' share" in intercollegiate athletics programs is grossly and demonstrably false.

Men continue to receive the overwhelming share of participation opportunities, operating budgets, recruiting dollars and scholarships -- despite 30 years of Title IX.

* The assertion that men were losing sports opportunities failed to point out irrefutable data from the GAO that men actually gained opportunities overall.

* The segment failed to mention the General Accounting Office (GAO) report that directly refutes the claim that men as a whole were losing sports opportunities. The GAO, the agency that conducts studies relied upon by all branches of government, found that men's opportunities had increased both in the number of teams offered and the numbers of individual opportunities to participate, such as soccer where 120 new men's programs have been created. The GAO study also found that most schools (72 percent) that added women's teams did so without discontinuing any teams.

* The segment presented only men whose athletics programs had been cut or discontinued, but failed to present women who have been subject to decades of discrimination in sports, whose programs are cut or are underfunded.

While men's gymnastics lost 56 intercollegiate teams, women gymnasts in that same period lost far more -- 100 teams. While male wrestlers were sympathetically portrayed, the segment failed to present the stories of innumerable women who have had to sue their schools for the basic opportunity to participate in sports, or women who are currently treated like second-class citizens by their athletics departments. These must rely on the force of law to ensure that they are not subject to the types of stereotypical prejudices exhibited against women's athletics demonstrated in the segment.

* The segment allowed the wresting coach's incorrect assertion that the law does not allow for differences in male and female interests in athletics.

If such an assertion were the law, schools would be required to start football teams for women, which is not the case. If women have no interest or ability to participate, the school would be in compliance with Title IX under the third prong, even if it offered no female athletics opportunities.

Instead, it is the enormous demand for women's sports that prevents particularly large schools from meeting prong three without matching opportunities provided to men.

* The segment wrongly asserted that Title IX was applied only in athletics.

The impermissible "separate but equal" doctrine struck down in Brown v. Board of Education is permissible under Title IX because sports are gender specific, as opposed to the mechanical engineering, physics or dance programs -- where admissions can be gender-blind. Unlike these other departments, athletics departments cannot operate in a gender-blind manner. As a result, "determining whether discrimination exists in athletics programs requires gender-conscious, group-wide comparisons."

Because of this sex segregation, a college will decide -- well in advance of an athlete's high-school sophomore year -- how many teams it will be sponsoring when that high-school athlete eventually becomes a college freshman. A school will create the demand and recruit the athletes to fill the demand it created. Title IX simply requires that schools allocate these school-created slots in a nondiscriminatory manner.

That some schools do not have as many female walk-on participants or "bench warmers" as men's teams does not demonstrate lack of interest by women -- indeed it demonstrates the opposite. The fact that women rush to fill genuine competitive athletics opportunities demonstrates their desire to actually compete, rather than to be symbolic team members. Because women's athletics budgets are comparably smaller, coaches have a disincentive to keep additional athletes on the bench. Walk-on athletics positions may be less expensive, but they are not free. The issue is whether a school's male walk-on roster will prevent that same school from starting a women's team, for which women are expressing a tremendous demand for actual competition. Whether and how many walk-on positions to budget reflects how a school chooses to allocate financial resources.

With 2.8 million girls playing high-school sports, it is inconceivable that colleges cannot find women to play on the teams they create. That's akin to the National Football League claiming that it can't find enough football players to play in its league, when each year it drafts fewer than 200 players while there are currently 60,000 football players in the NCAA.

* The segment suggested that women aren't as interested in playing sports.

While "60 Minutes" did include that I was offended by this premise, the segment neglected to mention any facts supporting the opposite conclusion -- that the last 30 years shows irrefutably that interest is a function of available opportunities. Girls in high school now are participating at a rate of 2.8 million per year -- an 800 percent increase from pre-Title IX participation rates. While fewer than 30,000 women participated in college sports before Title IX, today that number exceeds 150,000 -- five times the pre-Title IX rate. With these enormous participation rates, how can it be claimed that women aren't interested in playing sports?

Finally, if it is true -- as the piece suggested -- that women do not desire the sports participation opportunities that are foisted upon them, then a school will be deemed legally in compliance under the third prong of Title IX's participation test.

The compliance choices made by athletics departments are not the benchmark to determine a law's logic or ethic, or the values it embodies. The law does not require or even encourage schools to eliminate or cap a men's program to comply with Title IX.

The fact that some schools are hostile to Title IX and make choices inconsistent with the school's educational mission does not imply that women should be afforded fewer athletics opportunities. The wrong-headed "arms-race"-driven decisions of athletics departments are the problem, and weakening effective civil-rights laws is not the solution. Young women continue to be hampered by schools that fail to field teams because of these outmoded stereotypes that virtually everyone agrees are not provable. "60 Minutes" did a disservice to viewers, to parents and to women athletes around the country.

Nancy Hogshead-Makar is a former Olympic champion and current assistant professor of law at the Florida Coastal School of Law.