VANCOUVER—A Canadian author has launched a crowdfunding campaign to help people named in a defamation lawsuit filed this week by the former chair of the creative writing program at the University of British Columbia.

More than 500 people contributed $45,000 in less than 24 hours. By Wednesday evening, $46,907 had been raised.

The GoFundMe campaign was set up to defray some of the initial legal expenses for the defendants, according to Amanda Leduc, the novelist who launched the effort.

“I know how expensive defamation suits can be, and I was galvanized into action thinking about the defendants named in the suit, many of whom do not have the institutional power and funds available to cope with something like this,” Leduc said in an email.

She added that she did not expect to raise “this much in one day” and will look at raising the target of $50,000 once the benchmark is reached.

Steven Galloway, a novelist and former UBC professor, is suing a woman claiming she falsely accused him of sexual and physical assaults. The lawsuit also alleges two dozen other people repeated the accusations on social media and claims Galloway was defamed and suffered damage to his reputation.

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It asks for damages and an injunction preventing the defendants from repeating the allegations, as well as having them removed from the internet.

“The defamation began with false statements by (the woman) to several other defendants, who recklessly repeated and asserted the truth of the accusations both within UBC and publicly on the internet, including on Twitter,” the statement of claim says.

Galloway was suspended from the university in November 2015 while an investigation was completed into what the school said were serious allegations of misconduct. In December of that year, the university asked a former B.C. Supreme Court judge to investigate complaints against Galloway. Mary Ellen Boyd’s report, submitted in April 2016, has never been made public.

Galloway was fired that June.

A labour arbitration decision later ordered the university to pay Galloway $167,000 in damages for statements the school made during the process that violated his privacy rights and harmed his reputation.

However, the faculty association withdrew its claim to have Galloway reinstated to his post without giving details. The issue of whether the university had cause to dismiss the professor was no longer contested.

Leduc said the Canadian literary community is both powerful and fractured.

“I felt that the latest revelation of the defamation suit provided an opportunity for us to show how supportive the CanLit community can be by coming in to support the defendants however we can,” she explained.

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The campaign is only the first in a series of fundraising initiatives. Leduc said a larger campaign is in the works that will incorporate monthly donations and look to prepare for legal costs incurred many months down the road.

And, she said, it’s important to note that a case like this has wide-ranging implications beyond the world of Canadian literature.

“Someone who has been accused of sexual assault is now suing their accusers and those who have supported the accusers themselves,” she said. “This should be of concern to anyone who cares about the #MeToo movement. Together, we need to question and interrogate the power structures that make these kinds of actions possible.”

With files from The Canadian Press

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