WASHINGTON (AP) — The Education Department's civil rights chief apologized Wednesday for saying 90 percent of campus sexual assault claims stem from both participants being drunk and that the rights of the accused are too often ignored.

"What I said was flippant, and I am sorry," Candice Jackson, the acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a 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."

She was quoted in The New York Times on Wednesday as saying rules imposed und...