This is an update to a story we brought you last week. Rep. Jared Polis is sorry for his remarks.

He wrote this on Medium.

I misspoke

During a subcommittee hearing last week about sexual assault on college campuses, I committed a major gaffe during the back-and-forth exchange with a witness who was advocating for removing the authority of colleges to adjudicate sexual assault cases that happen on their campuses.

During that exchange I went too far by implying that I support expelling innocent students from college campuses, which is something neither I nor other advocates of justice for survivors of sexual assault support. That is not what I meant to say and I apologize for my poor choice of words.

Sexual assault on college campuses is a serious issue — one that shouldn’t be whittled down to errant soundbites. By some estimates nearly one in five female students will be sexually assaulted by the time they graduate.

Nor should this be seen strictly as a gender issue. Men also experience sexual assault and they face the same types of trauma as female survivors.

To most people who don’t know much about this issue, it makes sense to solely adjudicate these cases in our criminal justice system, just like we do other crimes. The witness mentioned above who I was questioning was arguing for just such an approach.