UBC pressure grows over sexual-assault complaints amid Steven Galloway case
An advocate for sexual-violence victims testified that media attention to the university’s handling of a history-student complaint became entangled with the high-profile allegations against writer Steven Galloway.
An advocate for victims of sexual violence testified that the University of British Columbia (UBC) was facing increasing scrutiny over its process for handling sexual-assault complaints as the separate allegations against bestselling author Steven Galloway gained public attention.
Glynnis Kirchmeier, who is representing herself in a B.C. Supreme Court trial, said that after a press conference on Nov. 22, 2015, journalists asked whether Galloway would be featured in a CBC documentary about a history-student case, linking the two issues in public discourse.
Kirchmeier, a former history student now attending law school in the United States, recounted that she met the complainant, identified only as A.B., in spring 2016 and began advising her on how to hold the university accountable. She also described sending an open letter on Nov. 10, 2015, to students and faculty criticizing UBC for not acting on complaints about a male PhD student, a letter that later reached A.B. and was forwarded to Galloway.
Galloway, who chaired UBC’s creative-writing program, launched a lawsuit in 2018 against nearly two dozen defendants, alleging that the allegations made by A.B. damaged his reputation and career. He has denied any criminal wrongdoing and has not been charged.
During cross-examination, Kirchmeier’s social-media post from 2018 was discussed. The post criticized a feature in The Walrus magazine, stating that it framed Galloway’s alleged affair as “raping/sexually harassing a student,” a phrasing she said was intended to distinguish between assault and harassment.
Kirchmeier also testified that a 2016 investigation by former B.C. Supreme Court justice Mary Ellen Boyd found, on a balance of probabilities, that Galloway had sexually harassed a student and engaged in other misconduct, but did not establish sexual assault.
The trial, which includes only A.B., Kirchmeier and two others as defendants, is expected to conclude later this week, with UBC’s former dean of arts, Gage Averill, scheduled to testify for the defence.