Author Galloway 'floored' by accuser's emails disclosed in his defamation lawsuit

Author and former University of British Columbia professor Steven Galloway, back centre, is seen through a window as he leaves B.C. Supreme Court during a lunch break at his defamation lawsuit, in Vancouver, on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

VANCOUVER — Former University of B.C. professor and author Steven Galloway says he was shocked and “floored” by the contents of emails disclosed in his defamation lawsuit over unproven sexual assault allegations that ended his career.

Galloway’s testimony in his defamation lawsuit against a former student and other defendants continues in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver.

He says he was shocked to learn that an email to the president of UBC from the defendant A.B., who alleged Galloway sexually assaulted her, had been copied to a journalist from the CBC’s Fifth Estate.

Galloway says correspondence between A.B. and others in the university’s creative writing department had been disclosed in an earlier arbitration, and later in relation to the lawsuit he originally filed in 2018.

• Author Steven Galloway testifies that split was ‘amicable’ with former student

He says he was “horrified” at emails depicting him as a violent sexual predator, and he never understood why the university publicly announced his suspension in 2015 over what it called “serious allegations.”

Galloway says the public announcement wasn’t standard practice, calling it “verdict first, trial second,” but it made sense in the context of emails from A.B. in which he says she had been “threatening them with a big public thing, at a time when they were extremely concerned with their image.”

Multiple defendants originally named in the lawsuit have settled with Galloway and published apologies to him over the allegations that he denies but which spread widely on social media.

This report by Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press, was first published Oct. 7, 2026