Jamie Sarkonak: Galloway’s accuser got an A+ but never actually finished her degree - National Post

Copy URL Facebook Linked In X (Twitter) Loading account options Sign In Manage Account Close account menu Sign Out Steven Galloway walks out of BC Supreme Court in Vancouver, B.C., Oct. 5, 2026. (Arlen Redekop / Postmedia) By Jamie Sarkonak November 5, 2026 at 6:00 a.m. Last Updated: November 5, 2026 at 6:30 a.m. As the writing and academic career of Steven Galloway entered a freefall from which it wouldn’t recover, his accuser was ushered to the finish line of her Master’s of Fine Arts (MFA) in creative writing with an incomplete thesis — and an A+ in the program.

In the B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver on Wednesday, UBC Prof. Annabel Lyon revealed during cross-examination that Galloway’s accuser, identifiable only as A.B., graduated with the highest possible grade a student could earn — despite having never completed the keystone requirement of her degree.

Galloway originally brought this defamation suit against A.B., who levelled unsubstantiated allegations of sexual assault against him after they had a consensual affair, as well as many others who repeated A.B.’s allegations, including Lyon. Prior to the start of trial, Lyon settled with Galloway out of court. She remained a participant in the trial as a witness for A.B.

Adding to her testimony from Tuesday, Lyon explained that the thesis — essentially, a completed manuscript of a novel — is a requirement for graduation in the creative writing MFA program, comprising six of its 36 total credits. Lyon agreed it was a “critical” component.

A.B.’s thesis was supervised by the now-retired professor Keith Maillard, while Lyon was the “second reader” — a second set of eyes tasked with signing off on the completion of a graduate student’s requirements. Lyon testified that Maillard insisted on waving A.B. through the program without a completed manuscript. Lyon, on the other hand, thought the thesis was incomplete and not acceptable for graduation, and didn’t even give it a full read despite that being a requirement for her sign-off.

“I might have started reading it, but I did not read the whole thing,” she told court. She “read enough of it to realize that it was not complete.”

In the end, she deferred to her senior colleague.

Echoing her testimony from Tuesday, Lyon said she now regrets signing off on A.B.’s thesis. She tried to account for it by promising A.B. that she would read the manuscript when it was complete, but A.B. never took up the offer.

The entire situation prompted Lyon to write a policy for the department setting out the criteria for a completed thesis. A.B.’s thesis would be considered complete under these new criteria, she added.

Galloway’s lawyer pressed Lyon about whether she asked Maillard “what on Earth” he was thinking. She responded that she expressed her reservations by writing him an email stating she was uncomfortable with passing A.B.’s sketchy manuscript.

Public UBC records show that A.B. was granted her degree during the 2015 fall convocation at the end of that November, just two weeks after her allegations against Galloway ripped through the faculty and sent his career into a nosedive. One mid-November 2015 email from A.B. to Maillard, published in an earlier court decision, indicates that she did not attend the graduation ceremony. She does not list her UBC MFA on her website.

Lyon further testified that she did not tell the arts faculty dean, Gage Averill, about her disingenuous approval of the incomplete thesis until months later because he had been travelling. Averill is scheduled to take the stand in the coming days.

At a few different points, Galloway’s lawyer brought Lyon through questioning that hinted at just how perceptive she was of the media. Lyon recalled two instances where she and a colleague spoke to media about what had happened. At one point in the record, she made a statement about UBC losing the “media war.”

Lyon denied, however, that she was invested in promoting A.B. and the story that engulfed the creative writing department. She said that she felt “extremely protective” of the students in the program and that some of them were feeling “despondency.” She wanted them to feel assured that they were being heard.

Before court adjourned on Wednesday, A.B.’s lawyer informed the court that he was no longer planning to call Paul Krause, now a UBC professor emeritus of history, to the stand. Per a 2021 court decision, A.B. began corresponding with Krause in the late summer of 2015 to discuss her allegations against Galloway and how best to disclose them to the creative writing department. By mid-November 2015, Krause had emailed Maillard to advise that “intervention of some kind is required with all due speed.”

Justice Neena Sharma also informed the court that she was not going to allow media to access any of the trial exhibits until the trial was complete. Because B.C. does not allow access to courtrooms through modern video technology, this renders it impossible to properly observe the evidence presented at trial if one is not seated directly in the courtroom.