The National Women's Law Center also attacked Griffith, a commissioner on the Secretary of Education's Commission on Opportunity in Athletics, for recommending the elimination of the Title IX "proportionality" provision that allows colleges and universities to meet the requirements of the law by offering athletic opportunities to male and female students in proportion to each gender's representation in the student body.

Elimination of proportionality "could be fatal" to Title IX's effectiveness, the group wrote.

Eric Pearson, executive director of the College Sports Council, rallied to Griffith's defense Tuesday, calling the allegations "a smear campaign." He defended Griffith's recommendations as "common sense changes" to help student athletic programs comply with the law and survive.

More than 1,000 men's athletic programs, mostly in the area of track and field, wrestling, swimming and gymnastics, have been dropped since Title IX was enacted in 1972, about 100 in the last year alone.

"He never attacked Title IX as it was originally written," Pearson said.

The concerns raised Tuesday only add to Griffith's perception problem. He is still answering questions about why he allowed his membership in the District of Columbia Bar Association to lapse, and why he never joined the Utah Bar Association yet acted in a legal capacity as BYU general counsel.

Opponents to the nomination have latched onto both issues as reasons why Griffith should be rejected.

Griffith said he does not recall getting his 1998 bar renewal notice, and when he left the Senate a year later for private practice he made an erroneous assumption the law firm took care of the dues, as had other law firms he had worked for in the past.

The Washington, D.C., bar suspended his membership (in effect a license to practice law) until 2001 when Griffith, by then working for BYU, found out and promptly paid his dues. It was an administrative suspension, something the D.C. bar imposes roughly 3,000 times a year on attorneys and judges who forget to pay their dues.

"I bear responsibility," Griffith told the committee. "I relied on others and I shouldn't have."

Griffith also told the committee he did not join the Utah bar because he had attorneys on staff who handled the actual litigation and court filings.

"I have never engaged in the unlawful practice of law," he said.

Democrats hinted Griffith is being less than forthcoming. They handed out his answers written in response to an application to take the Utah Bar Association examination, showing Griffith said he had offered legal advice in Utah in his capacity as a member of the D.C. bar, even though Utah had no reciprocity agreement with the District of Columbia until recently.

"Practicing law without a license is not a technicality," Leahy said. "It is a serious dereliction of duty."