In 2014, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York was quick to follow California, ordering the State University of New York to overhaul its sexual assault policies and make affirmative consent mandatory on all 64 campuses. SUNY obliged, but three years later, an appeals court reversed a decision by SUNY Potsdam to expel a student for sexual assault. The court claimed that the university’s investigation had been based on hearsay.

In 2015, Indiana University, which defines consent as something that requires sobriety, found that a male student had sexually assaulted a female student who had been drinking. The case was investigated by the university’s Title IX office, and the male student was expelled, but in 2016 prosecutors dismissed the case in criminal court, citing insufficient evidence.

Many universities, from public state colleges to the Ivy Leagues, have come under fire for how they have dealt with sexual assault investigations. The Chronicle of Higher Education has tracked the federal government’s investigations of colleges’ possible mishandling of sexual assault reports. As of Saturday, there were 419 such investigations, of which 350 remained open.

In early July, the education secretary, Betsy DeVos, said she intended to take a hard look at whether the Obama administration’s campus rape policies, which jump-started the “affirmative” and “active” consent movement, deprived accused students of their rights.

In an interview with The New York Times, the official appointed to lead the Office of Civil Rights, Candice E. Jackson, said that “90 percent” of sexual assault accusations on campus “fall into the category of ‘we were both drunk,’ ‘we broke up, and six months later I found myself under a Title IX investigation because she just decided that our last sleeping together was not quite right.’” Ms. Jackson later apologized, calling her remarks “flippant.”

Critics of Ms. DeVos say that the Obama-era policies had a positive effect on women on college campuses. Brett Sokolow, the executive director of the Association of Title IX Administrators, says he is playing a “long game.”

“Title IX is 45 years old,” he said. “It’s waxed and waned. It isn’t going anywhere. We just have to figure out how to navigate it.”