By The Associated Press
Eau Claire Leader-Telegram. December 28, 2023.
Editorial: What a way to end 2023
Did anyone have “university chancellor canned for videos with porn stars” on their 2023 bingo card? If you did, can we get the next lottery numbers from you?
This is one of those events that sounds completely surreal, an impossibility until it happens. Joe Gow, the now-former chancellor of UW-La Crosse, and his wife posted videos to pornographic websites and published books about their experiences in the industry.
It isn’t clear how the videos and books came to the attention of the University of Wisconsin System’s board of regents. The accounts didn’t use Gow’s name, and the books were written under a pen name.
The regents acted quickly, before Gow’s activities were widely known. The announcement of a meeting to discuss the discipline and possible termination of a chancellor took most people by surprise. Hours after the announcement, Gow was out as chancellor and the university had begun proceedings that could well lead to his removal as a tenured professor.
His departure wasn’t unexpected. He had already announced plans to step down as chancellor at the end of the current academic year in favor of a return to teaching as a communications professor. He likely won’t have that classroom option now, though.
Gow has said he was surprised by the regents’ reaction. That seems disingenuous. In one of the books, the couple wrote their careers “likely would be ruined” if their activities became known. It’s difficult to square Gow’s self-righteous reaction this week with his earlier, written words. Rather than being credible, his remarks appear more like a desperate bid for public sympathy.
In fact, Gow had already been disciplined for a 2018 incident in which he invited a porn star to speak on campus. That included a formal reprimand and denial of a raise. If nothing else, that should have clued him in that the board would be skittish at best about involvement with adult films.
It’s unsurprising that Gow is claiming protection under the First Amendment for his extracurricular activities. The claim is valid, though. Freedom of expression is an extraordinarily broad category.
Like every other freedom it isn’t absolute. Gow voluntarily signed a contract that said he could not “engage in any activity that would be adverse to, or competitive or inconsistent with the interests of the University of Wisconsin System.” That clause curtails his activities, confining them to that which would not embarrass the university.
Whether discussions of sex and participation in pornographic videos should fall foul of that clause can be debated. But the regents’ opinions on the question are the ones that matter, and they clearly felt Gow’s actions violated his contract. That determination is well within their purview, and making the decision does not violate Gow’s First Amendment rights.
Gow isn’t being prosecuted for his actions as far as we know. Nor is he being told that he cannot pursue these activities. There is a difference between an attempt to block speech or expression and the regents finding that specific examples are incompatible with the role he had as a high-profile leader and representative of his university.
While the system and Gow work toward what will most likely be wrangling over the terms of his departure, there’s a lesson for the rest of us. Conduct that puts you or your employer in a bad light can have consequences, and you don’t have to be a university chancellor to feel them. How many times have we heard of cases where a person has been fired for private racism that became public? It’s not hard to find examples.
This was a wild headline to end the year on. But, then, it has been a wild year.
