MANHATTAN, Kan. — She was 18, majoring in pre-medicine and settling in for her first year at Kansas State University, her dream school. Barely six weeks later, Crystal Stroup’s college career was suddenly and violently derailed.

The bizarre manner in which sexual assault disputes are investigated on college campuses could be overhauled now that Donald Trump has been elected president instead of Hillary Clinton.

Colleges and universities are grappling -- urgently, constantly and necessarily -- with the problem of campus sexual assault. While higher education administrators are focusing, rightly, on what happens on campuses, in our classrooms and dorms and disciplinary meetings, this year’s presidential campaign has made clear (if it was not already) that the problem of sexual harassment, sexual assault and their enabling antecedents are widespread throughout American society.

The Washington Post article and recording of Donald Trump boasting about how he tried to have sex with women and groped them without asking is having major reverberations in the political world. And it is also prompting considerable discussion in higher education, where a major part of the campaign against sexual assault has centered on the idea that sex without consent is rape.

Sexual assault is a huge problem on university campuses. A survey by the Telegraph showed that one in three female students in the U.K. were sexually assaulted or abused on campus. One in eight male students had been the victim of unwanted groping or advances. Given these statistics, it would seem logical that universities create programs and policies to prevent sexual assault.

In the five years since a federal agency announced new rules governing how colleges should respond to allegations of rape and sexual assault, opponents have argued that student and faculty rights have been dangerously eroded.