Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 reflects America's aspirational belief that girls and boys, women and men, both deserve equal educational opportunities in athletics. "Equal Play: Title IX and Social Change" shows how this now commonly-held ideal has been both implemented and thwarted over the years via actions in the legislature, executive and judicial branches of government. The book collects the best scholarship and essays, the important court cases, the administrative regulations and supporting documents on this important social movement. The authors demonstrate how government actions can shape, support, or hinder the goal of gender equality in athletic departments. They develop a discussion on the history of women in sports, analyze the meaning of "equal opportunity" for girls and women to participate in sports, and examine shifts in the arguments for and against Title IX. The expansive time-frame allows students to consider legal advocacy not as a means of overcoming a single hurdle or an event to be achieved, but as a continuum of progress toward the central purpose of the law.