When it comes to offering men and women equal opportunities to play sports, close may no longer be good enough.

Judges have typically ruled that universities are in compliance with the federal gender-equity law known as Title IX if the proportion of athletes who are women is within 5 percent of the representation of women in the total enrollment.

But a settlement announced Wednesday between the University of California-Davis and three female athletes holds the university’s athletic officials to a stricter 1.5 percent standard and could influence similar cases around the country, according to lawyers who are knowledgeable about gender-equity cases.

“It is a boost in the momentum toward the real goal of equality of opportunity, and not a goal of approximate equality, but real equality,” said Marcia Greenberger, co-president of the National Women’s Law Center, an advocacy group that often litigates gender-equity cases.