The civil rights chief of the Department of Education apologized Wednesday for her “flippant” comments on sexual assault reports on college campuses.
Acting head of the department’s civil rights office Candice Jackson was forced to apologize after she said that 90 percent of sexual assault claims came from drunkenness or regret, reports The Washington Post.
“What I said was flippant, and I am sorry,” she said in her statement. “All sexual harassment and sexual assault must be taken seriously — which has always been my position and will always be the position of this department … My words in the New York Times poorly characterized the conversations I’ve had with countless groups of advocates.”
The New York Times write-up dealt with the Thursday meeting between Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, sexual assault survivors and men’s advocacy groups on Title IX, which dictates the way college campuses should handle sexual assault claims. (RELATED: Education Dept: 90 Percent Of Sexual Assault Accusations Are The Result Of Regret And Drunk Sex)
Jackson told The New York Times that about 90 percent of those claims are from students who were both drunk at the time or after a break-up had occurred.
“Rather, the accusations — 90 percent of them — 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,'” Jackson told the outlet.
Her comments drew outrage from people who thought she was being insensitive to sexual assault victims.
“You’re telling me that 90% [of accusations] are from people who have been dating and then break up and then six months later, they report it? Because that’s a very specific situation, and it’s shocking to me that it would be 90% of those people,” Grace Starling, a sexual assault survivor, said.
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