College chancellor fired for adult videos says it's a free-speech issue
In 2007, when Joseph Gow was welcomed to his new post as the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, he sketched out a wish for the future. "In a few years," he told the school's alumni magazine, "I want people to be saying the same kind of nice things they're saying about me as I start: That that guy came in, he showed us a certain way and wow, he has stuck to it, and it worked."
Gow stuck to his ways for 16 years, becoming UW-La Crosse's second-longest-serving chancellor, a role formerly called president. But on Wednesday, his tenure ended abruptly when the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents unanimously voted to fire him after discovering sexually explicit videos Gow, 63, had produced and filmed with his wife.
In statements, university officials used language such as "abhorrent" and "disgusted," with University of Wisconsin System President Jay Rothman saying "specific conduct" by Gow had "subjected the university to significant reputational harm."
Gow had already announced this fall that he was stepping down in the springtime and planned to return to the classroom, where he is a tenured communications professor. That plan is now in jeopardy as Rothman seeks to have the professor's tenure status reviewed.
The firing and the fallout has come as a surprise to Gow, who said the regents never specified which policy he violated and did not invite him to speak or defend himself at their hastily called meeting Wednesday night. He is also surprised that videos of legal, consensual sex with his wife, Carmen Wilson, made in their private time, have run afoul of standards in a university system that just six years ago adopted a sweeping new policy on academic freedom and freedom of expression.
The sexuality and relationship books the couple have co-written under pseudonyms and the videos they have filmed and produced would be covered under the school's free-expression policy, Gow argued.
"They're overlooking some very clear free-speech protections," Gow said in a Thursday phone interview with The Washington Post. "People who care about free speech should be very concerned about this situation. . . . It could happen in other areas as well. Maybe they're not interested in adult sexuality, but it could be something political or something social, and we have to have the ability to disagree."
Wilson, 56, was even more succinct, arguing that the board's actions against her husband demonstrate that "free speech is free - as long as it aligns with [their] values."
Gow's case comes amid a broader discussion over the extent to which employers can punish or marginalize employees for legal behavior they pursue in their private lives. In the past few years, nurses, teachers, paramedics, judges and professionals in other fields have lost their jobs after they were outed as having an account on the adult content site OnlyFans or other pornography sites. In Virginia, a woman running for a state House of Delegates seat faced backlash for performing sex acts online for tips.
Gow doesn't know how the videos featuring him and Wilson came to the attention of the UW Board of Regents, but because the content exists on sites such as Pornhub, LoyalFans and OnlyFans, it indicates that whoever came across the videos "was interested in the materials."
Many of the couple's videos are searchable on publicly accessible adult websites and on social media accounts, appearing under the account name "Sexy Happy Couple." And while some of their content is labeled "sexy," not all of it is explicit; one account, "Sexy Healthy Cooking," shows the clothed couple making vegan recipes in their kitchen, usually with an adult-film star as a guest chef.
Wilson said she and her husband don't pursue adult content for money, describing it as more "hobby-based." The couple's cooking videos and sex videos are highly produced, and they travel around the country to produce, film and interview others in the adult film industry.
"It's something we enjoy that enhances our relationship. And we found the people we work with to be extraordinarily open and supportive and professional," Wilson said of other adult-film actors they work with.
Gow sees a certain irony in the school's backlash to his and Wilson's hobby, noting that their videos do not reference the university in any way, are not violent and do not depict illegal activity.
"If anything, we consciously said, 'Let's make videos that are not violent, are not exploitative, do not involve people of dramatically different ages and show a couple in a happy, loving relationship,'" Gow said.
Rothman, the university system president, said that Gow was fired for failing to act as a role model for students, faculty members and the community and that the First Amendment does not give him a "pass."
Proper judgment "requires that there are and must be limits on what is said or done by the individuals entrusted to lead our universities," Rothman said in a letter to the Associated Press on Thursday.
This recent discovery of Gow's hobby is not the first time his ties to the adult film world have landed him in trouble at work. In 2018, Gow, who is also a communications professor, was formally reprimanded after inviting adult-film actor Nina Hartley to campus to give a talk titled "Fantasy Versus Reality: Viewing Adult Media With a Critical Eye."
Gow said in an interview with Inside Higher Ed at the time that he had invited Hartley to promote free speech. Instead, Gow was reprimanded and denied a pay raise, and he offered to personally reimburse the university for Hartley's speaking fee.
Among other resolutions, the university system's policy holds that "the UW System is committed to providing all members of the university community with the broadest possible latitude to explore ideas and to speak, write, listen, challenge and learn," and states "it is not the proper role of the UW System to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they, or others, find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive."
While a few critics have gloated over Gow's firing, he and Wilson said they have overwhelmingly received messages of support from across the country - and more than a few calls from free-speech attorneys. For now, Gow said he doesn't know if he will take legal action against the university, either for firing him or potentially trying to revoke his tenure.
The Board of Regents, which said it retained an outside firm to investigate the matter, will meet again Friday to discuss Gow's employment.
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