A handful of University of British Columbia administrators took the unprecedented step in 2015 to publicly announce Steven Galloway’s removal as creative writing program chair because sexual assault allegations against him were spreading at the school and among the public, the former dean of arts, Gage Averill, testified Friday.
Mr. Averill, now UBC’s provost and vice-president, academic at the institution, is the first and only major decision-maker from the university to testify in the trial more than a decade in the making. But, he told the court, he was travelling as the crisis unfolded and had only a small role in creating the document that he signed and sent out into the world.
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Author and former UBC professor Steven Galloway leaves B.C. Supreme Court during a break from his defamation lawsuit in Vancouver in October.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Mr. Galloway, who was the chair of UBC’s creative writing program, launched a lawsuit against almost two dozen defendants in 2018. He claims in this trial that the sexual assault allegations of a woman known only as A.B., because of a trial publication ban – and their repetition online by three other women – ruined his reputation, cost him his job and destroyed his personal life.
Mr. Galloway was never charged with a crime but was fired in June 2016.
Mr. Averill testified he was flying to Ottawa when a creative writing faculty member contacted him the Sunday night before the statement went out. They alerted him to the emergency off-campus meeting of colleagues that had just occurred to discuss the allegation against Mr. Galloway.
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While on the stand, Mr. Averill was read an e-mail from Annabel Lyon, another creative writing professor: “Our first priority and primary concern is that Steve take a leave immediately so the students will feel the department is a safe environment.”
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Gage Averill in 2010.LAURA LEYSHON/The Globe and Mail
More than half a dozen UBC administrators worked together to craft the November 2015 statement announcing the suspension of the CanLit star and chair of the creative writing program, which, Mr. Averill testified Friday in provincial Supreme Court, was edited to remove any mention of sexual violence at the behest of the school’s privacy expert.
Still, the university’s online statement noting “serious allegations” against Mr. Galloway made international headlines amid the nascent #MeToo era, with the court hearing Friday how a small group tried and failed to contain a growing public relations nightmare.
Over the next three days, a group of administrators including Mr. Averill exchanged e-mails detailing how to reassure these professors and their students that the university was taking the allegations seriously as well as respecting Mr. Galloway’s privacy rights, the court heard.
Mr. Averill testified he remembered talking to A.B. before the university went public with its suspension of Mr. Galloway, but he said he did not recall whether he discussed the school’s upcoming statement nor if he supplied her a draft.
A.B.’s lawyer Sydney Gomez asked Mr. Averill, who had to be subpoenaed to testify, whether he had ever seen another suspension be announced so publicly during his long tenure at the university.
“I don’t think so,” he replied.
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Closing arguments from all parties in the trial are set to begin in the last week of November.Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press
In other parts of his testimony he noted administrators believed at the time that Mr. Galloway’s accuser would go public with the allegations on social media, which also led the school to go “further than we usually do addressing that to make sure that people understood an impartial investigation would be pursued.”
Mr. Averill told the court that four days after the school published Mr. Galloway’s suspension letter, he and his colleagues discussed deleting it from the internet because the professor’s union was incensed.
He agreed with the assertion from Daniel Burnett, a lawyer for Mr. Galloway, that “there was considerable concern expressed by the Faculty Association for Mr. Galloway’s privacy.”
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A.B. is not testifying and, at the start of the trial, one of her lawyers told the court that she was withdrawing her defences of truth and fair comment – but denies the accusations that she spread lies about Mr. Galloway, with whom she had a two-year affair. Her lawyers have told the court that she tried to kill herself twice because of the stress of the ordeal.
Soon after Mr. Galloway’s suspension, UBC hired former Supreme Court justice Mary Ellen Boyd to investigate A.B.’s allegations. In 2016 Ms. Boyd found that, on a balance of probabilities, it could not be established that he committed sexual assault or assault, but that he had sexually harassed her and committed other misconduct.
Before Mr. Averill took the stand Friday afternoon, the lawyers for Mr. Galloway and A.B. argued in the morning over whether he could be asked about other issues that may have played into UBC’s decision to suspend the bestselling author and put out their official statement.
Ms. Gomez, A.B.’s lawyer, argued that Mr. Galloway bears the burden of proving A.B.’s allegation was the legal cause of UBC publishing the statement about his suspension.
Justice Neena Sharma ruled against eliciting testimony from Mr. Averill, which narrowed the scope of the evidence he provided the court.
The testimony has now wrapped, and closing arguments from all parties will begin in the last week of this month.