OPINION | Defamation ruling sets precedent that could silence sexual assault victims
Photo Credit: Chase Carter VIA Ms. Magazine
In the summer of 2015, a young woman spoke out about her experiences as a grad student at the University of British Columbia (UBC), and while the true integrity of her statements is unknown, she has now been silenced. A.B., a former UBC grad student whose name has been withheld due to a publication ban, alleged that her creative writing professor, Stephen Galloway, attempted to choke and strangle her in March 2011 and that he sexually assaulted her three times between March and May of 2011. After these alleged assaults occurred, Galloway and A.B. entered a sexual relationship, according to court documents from this lawsuit, which ended two years later.
In July 2013, A.B. reached out to the UBC Equity Office and made a complaint about the alleged assaults. She was taken to speak to the RCMP and afterwards told the Equity Office in an anonymous email that “the situation was deeply traumatizing. I now feel awful […] The police created more trauma. The more I talk the worse it gets for me. I don’t want to talk — to make myself vulnerable or share any part of my experience — with anyone else at UBC.”
A.B. left UBC in 2014 and returned to Ontario without having fully completed her thesis, which prevented her from graduating. In 2015, she opened correspondence with multiple professors at the UBC creative writing program, asking that she be able to graduate with her current unfinished thesis, and was allowed to. Later, she opened up to these professors, as well as other UBC staff and alumni, telling them that Galloway had raped and strangled her on multiple occasions. In November 2015, A.B. began to assemble a formal report, and following the formal complaint, Galloway was suspended and required to step down as chair of the Creative Writing Department, due to the ongoing investigation.
UBC hired Mary Ellen Boyd, retired justice of the BC Supreme Court, to launch a complete investigation into the allegations against Galloway. Findings of the report were given to Dr. Gabe Averill, the Dean of Arts, in April 2016. The report concluded that the events that took place “during the late fall of 2010 into the spring of 2011 constitute sexual harassment” and not sexual assault as alleged by A.B. It is noted that this report is simply the judge’s review of the available evidence, as well as probability, and is not legally binding in court, meaning that assault could have taken place — but whether or not it did could not be determined by the available evidence. Following the review of this report, Stephen Galloway’s employment at UBC was terminated. Soon after, his termination gained media coverage, and Galloway told the Globe and Mail’s Gary Mason that it was during this time that he attempted suicide.
Many complaints were made to UBC during this time, including from the UBC Faculty Association (UBCFA) and alumni, about the mishandling of allegations made against the professor. Published in November 2016, “An Open Letter to UBC: Steven Galloway’s Right To Due Process,” heavily criticized the handling of the investigation as well as the effects it had on Galloway’s personal life. This letter was signed by over 80 members of the Canadian literary community, including Margaret Atwood and David Cronenberg. As a result of this media attention and action from the UBCFA, UBC was forced to pay Galloway $167,000 for violating his privacy and not giving him rightful due process during the unfolding investigation.
In October 2018, Galloway filed a series of defamation lawsuits against A.B. for her claims of sexual assault and more than a dozen others who shared and amplified these claims. He alleged that the claims that he assaulted her when they were in a, as he described it, “consensual relationship”, were defamatory. According to Britannica, “defamation, in law, is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person that result in damage to that person’s reputation.”
Quickly after the lawsuit was filed, the defendants requested that it be dismissed under BC’s Protection of Public Participation Act (PPPA) which protects debates on public interest or public figures. Defendant Keith Malliard, a professor from UBC’s Creative Writing department, claimed that A.B. was entitled to have the case dropped because “when a person is responding to an attack, defamatory statements the person makes about the attacker are privileged.” This effectively halted any action to a standstill for the last 5 years. Then, in January 2024, their campaign to have the lawsuit dropped was dismissed, meaning that Stephen Galloway can finally move ahead with legal action. While this defamation lawsuit may right certain wrongs for Galloway, this decision must be put into context to understand its weight on the lives of women in British Columbia.
In 2017, #MeToo started a global revolution which allowed sexual assault victims to speak out about their experiences like never before. Women across social media used the hashtag to call out and condemn their attackers. This outpouring brought down many prominent, influential people — predominantly men — who had continued to get away with sexual harassment and assault. According to The New York Times, 201 prominent men lost their jobs or major roles due to sexual misconduct in 2018, all of which had been brought to light during the #MeToo revolution.
During #MeToo, defamation lawsuits were filed by both abusers trying to silence their victims and victims for retaliatory statements made by the attackers in an attempt to deplatform them. A prime example of a threat of a defamation lawsuit is when former film producer Harvey Weinstein threatened to sue The New York Times after they released an exposé detailing Weinstein’s decades-long history of sexual assault and harassment, which arguably lit the spark that created the #MeToo revolution. While #MeToo gave women around the world a platform to share their experiences, in most cases of sexual assault, victims only have one voice, and often the weight of speaking out alone forces many into silence.
In the post-#MeToo era, sexual assault allegations are taken more seriously, especially in the workplace. Now, the effects of committing gender-based violence are enough to ruin someone’s career, if not their life. Considering how lightly sexual assault and harassment have been viewed in the past, this is progress, but this also warrants questions regarding false reports, something which is extremely prevalent in the Galloway defamation case. It is alleged by Galloway that the statements made by the defendants ruined his career as a professor and an author, as well as his life. While it could be argued that this ruling could help those who are falsely accused, only 2 per cent to 10 per cent of sexual assault reports are false, according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. This number is incomparable to the tons of people who are victims of sexual violence.
While this ruling may provide hope and redemption, as it has been framed by Galloway and his legal team, for this 2 to 10 per cent, 30 per cent of women age 15 or older are victims of sexual violence, according to UN Women. The government should be protecting the estimated 736 million women globally enduring one or more sexual assaults in their lifetime. This ruling does exactly the opposite because it removes protection from victims and can be easily taken advantage of by perpetrators. While in the Galloway case, the circumstances and whether or not the events constitute sexual harassment or sexual assault are largely unknown, we “must value a woman’s pain above a man’s reputation” in these kinds of legal situations, as put by a headline from The Globe and Mail. Even if Stephen Galloway receives the justice he may or may not deserve, the impacts will greatly harm the lives and recovery of sexual assault victims.
The precedent set at the beginning of this year could undo all the power that was taken back by victims during the #MeToo era. Allowing this defamation lawsuit to proceed could silence sexual assault victims from speaking out in the future. According to Statistics Canada, only 6 per cent of sexual assaults are reported, making it one of the most underreported crimes in Canada. Giving assault perpetrators the ability to sue their victims for defamation will cause this statistic to decrease even more and would cause irreparable harm to the lives of these victims. Lillianne Cadieux-Shaw, a Canadian lawyer with a focus on defamation and harassment, told CBC that she does "have concerns about whether this decision will make women who want to support other women… more nervous to do so.” A statement from A.B.’s lawyer, Joanna Birenbaum, said that they were “extremely concerned about the implications of this judgment for survivors of sexual violence and in particular for students, staff, and faculty of universities and colleges, who may feel less safe about coming forward with concerns.”
According to Statistics Canada, “one in ten students who identify as women at Canadian postsecondary schools were sexually assaulted in a postsecondary setting.” As was seen at Western University in previous years as mass sexual assault investigations took place, sexual violence on university campuses is common and goes largely unpunished. Beyond reporting, “only one in fifteen (6.5 per cent) cases of sexual assaults reported to police in Canada results in the perpetrator being sentenced with jail time,” according to the Vancouver Rape Shelter. If victims have the threat of defamation hanging over their heads, it will be harder to have perpetrators of sexual violence brought to justice. This ruling could result in systemic disempowerment of sexual assault victims and will keep women trapped in an age-old battle.
It’s her word against his. He has power, influence, and money. She only has her voice. Now, she might not even have that.