Now that the Secretary's Commission on Opportunity in Athletics has concluded its public hearings, we have to see whether Title IX's "three-part test" will survive.

Opponents of the way the law is interpreted charge that prong one of the test (proportionality) spells out a quota discriminating against men. But proponents fear that if the three-part test is changed, Title IX's enforcement for females would be greatly weakened. But numbers and percentages aren't what equal opportunity is about.

The different treatment of the sexes, which is the usual definition of sex discrimination, causes animosity and rivalry between females and males, which certainly isn't the aim of gender equity. Women's gymnastics is the comparative for men's gymnastics, not football; men's rowing is the comparative for women's rowing, not football.

These skilled male athletes in smaller sports don't want to play football. Surely Title IX doesn't force universities to cut men's opportunities (although many college regents insist it requires them to do so); but the Office for Civil Rights, which enforces the law, doesn't tell schools it is discriminatory to drop activities for one sex that are kept, or are likely to be instituted, for the other, when both sexes are known to enjoy the sports and be capable in them.

Now, I've been a bone-deep feminist all my life and have worked hard over the years to improve athletics opportunities for females, including, for example, writing the first comprehensive Title IX complaint against a major university (Michigan) in 1973, solely on grounds of gross discrimination in athletics. But what gave me the most satisfaction was giving the speech to Michigan's Board in Control of Intercollegiate Athletics in 1994 that saved men's gymnastics "on grounds of gender equity" when the athletics department wanted to cut it on the same grounds.

I argued that the male and female gymnasts are the sons and daughters of the university, and both deserve to represent the university proudly as equally valued partners on its overall gymnastics team, as in the Olympics, where the female and the male components of just about every sport represent their countries. How can a co-ed university sponsor a track meet -- featuring students running, jumping and hurling to their best ability -- without men? In publicly funded education, if a sport is offered that appeals to both sexes, it should be available to both. At its finest, gender equity would build partnership between the sexes as members of a common human population, as must be done in other aspects of education and employment, not the resentment that now exists.

If football's the problem, then do something about football. Don't cut men's gymnastics. There's nothing comparable to Division I-A football, with its 85 scholarships, giant stadiums, high-paid coaches, 60-player traveling teams, huge publicity, high insurance fees and expenses for accommodations at home and away, among many other bignesses. The NCAA could cut the numbers on a standard team to 60 and the number of scholarships to 40 or fewer, and no one would notice the difference -- except for some moms and dads. And cutting nearly 50 players from the standard team would pretty much proportionalize women's and men's numbers. If more needed to be cut for balance, then every other men's sport could sacrifice two or three spaces for a while.

A sport is a sport, and nearly all have squads for both sexes. Each team sport needs a second starter number for substitutions and probably a third for injuries. For women and men in the same sport, there need to be common minimum and maximum numbers of players, numbers for travel, numbers and values of scholarships, and rules about cutting.

If football is to be considered a college sport on a par with others, a roster of nine teams over (assuming 11-player platoons) is absurd. But since football enthusiasts justify the need for every last player, few schools would be willing to make drastic cuts in players and scholarships. Now, everyone knows that football brings in revenue, although in truth it is in the red in 82 percent of colleges.

An organization whose function is to make money is called a business. Even NCAA board members think of football as a business, though not a well-run one. As a business, football could pay its players in stipends instead of scholarships. Then it would be an employer -- a charitable, fund-raising, semi-amateur employer, in the business of raising money for the athletics department. Then Division I football would be enforced by Title VII, the employment discrimination law, instead of Title IX, the education discrimination law, and men's smaller sports, along with women's artificially enlarged teams, wouldn't have to compete in the numbers game with football and go through contortions to meet Title IX's three-part test. And the football players, because they were contributing so selflessly to the university, could take courses without charge.

Universities' business school faculties could figure out how to make football a successful business in a federally financed institution, possibly selling shares.

If gigantic football is not put into a different department and IRS category, I'm afraid men's teams will continue to be cut.

Marcia Federbush, a consultant in equal opportunity in education and employment, was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 1988 for pioneering work in overcoming sex discrimination in education.