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Last month, I profiled Joe Gow, who was ousted from his role as the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse last year for posting online porn videos he made of himself and his wife (and others). Now, a panel of peers is recommending he also lose his tenured teaching position for his “pattern of behavior demonstrating poor judgment.”
Gow, who represented himself during the hearing on July 11, told me he’s “mystified” by the decision.
“There’s people I worked with that I thought were good colleagues, and then to see some of them turn on me,” says communications professor Gow, 63, pausing. “That was the hard part.”
To his peers, the hard part was the content he was creating—and continuing to mention in countless interviews (like ours in The Free Press). One video featured him and his wife, Carmen Wilson, 56, a former university employee, pretending to house-hunt with India Summer, Adult Video News’ two-time MILF Performer of the Year, who seduces both of them in the master bedroom. Gow tells me what he does in his “private life” with his wife is protected by the First Amendment.
“They’re treating me like a criminal. I mean, this kind of feels like Stalin’s Russia,” he says.
In a statement, free speech advocacy organization FIRE agreed that the committee’s recommendation “clashes with the First Amendment and threatens the rights of all UW faculty.” Now, Gow says that he’s represented by an attorney, provided to him for free by FIRE, who will advise him on any communications with the university system and represent him in any future hearings. He tells me that his replacement in the chancellor’s office has until August 11 to decide if they’ll ignore the faculty committee’s recommendation or punt it to the statewide Board of Regents for yet another hearing.
“I’m spending a lot of time reading books, getting ready to teach in the fall. And that’s what I hope will happen.”
Olivia Reingold is a reporter for The Free Press. Follow her on X @Olivia_Reingold and read her original piece about Joe Gow, “Professor by Day, Porn Star by Night. Can He Be Both?”
Employers in general require a degree of discretion in determining whether an employee is acting in a fashion that discredits their organization. Not absolute discretion, to be sure-- however, I believe the University of Wisconsin is acting within its rights to terminate Mr. Gow's employment, granting that reasonable people could disagree.
Many persons (like Mr. Gow) are mistaken in asserting that 1A freedom of speech rights require employers to tolerate any and all behavioral or rhetorical excess. 1A restrains the Government, not society at large and all organizations therein. Mr. Gow would have strong basis for complaint were he legally prosecuted for his extracurricular frolics. That's not the issue here.
I believe the panel did not recommend. He lose his tenure for making porn with his wife. I’m pretty sure the panel recommended he lose tenure for posting online such videos for his potential students to see.