Joe Gow and Carmen Wilson.
The New York Times.
The chancellor of a state university in Wisconsin was fired this week after posting pornographic videos with his wife online.
The University of Wisconsin System’s Board of Regents unanimously decided to dismiss the chancellor, Joe Gow, who had led the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse since 2007 and was its longest-tenured leader since the 1960s. Carmen Wilson, Gow’s wife, was also removed from her unpaid position as associate to the chancellor.
In an interview on Thursday, Gow and Wilson said they believe they were fired over the videos, which included sex scenes together and with others under the username Sexy Happy Couple. Both said they felt it was wrong for the university to punish them over the videos, arguing that doing so infringes on their free speech rights.
Gow, 63, said he and his wife, 56, have made videos together for years but had decided recently to make them publicly available on porn websites. They said they never mentioned the university or their jobs in the videos.
Jay Rothman, the president of the University of Wisconsin System, said Gow had caused the university “significant reputational harm.”
Rothman said the current plan was for Gow, who is also a tenured professor of communication, to return to his faculty role following a paid administrative leave. But Rothman said he had asked the university to review Gow’s tenured status and for a law firm to investigate the matter.
Gow said the university is “not following their own policy on academic freedom and freedom of speech,” adding, “They also don’t seem to realize that the First Amendment would be critical in this situation.”
In 2004, the US Supreme Court unanimously decided a case about a police officer who had been fired for selling a pornographic video of himself. In the case, City of San Diego v Roe, the court ruled that the officer’s First Amendment right had not been violated. The court said that while public employees have a right to speak on matters of public concern, a pornographic video did not fall into that category.
If Gow pursued legal action, he would probably have an even tougher road than the police officer in that case, experts said, because courts have often found that public entities have more discretion when removing top officials than rank-and-file employees.