A decision is expected any day about whether a University of Wisconsin-La Crosse chancellor, fired after it was discovered that he was making porn with his wife, will be kicked off the payroll and lose his tenured position as well.
The former chancellor, Joseph Gow, was having sex on camera with his wife, Carmen Wilson, on OnlyFans and PornHub, and the couple was also running a YouTube channel called Sexy Happy Couple in which, fully clothed, they cooked vegan recipes with noted porn stars. The couple also also wrote two books together about their sex lives and pornography “adventures.”
Mr. Gow was fired from his chancellor position when university officials found out about his online activities. He remains a salaried, tenured professor at the university, and terminating him from that role, due to the protections of tenure, has proven more complicated.
Mr. Gow tells the Sun it’s “not real clear” when a final decision will be made but he hopes it will be released sometime this week. He says that following a two-day hearing overseen by a committee of five UW-Lacrosse professors last week, it’s “healthy” that the decision is taking some time “because it shows that the administration doesn’t have a real strong case that it was black and white.”
Calling his behavior “abhorrent” and expressing alarm and disgust, the UW System terminated Mr. Gow in December, but he retained his tenured position. Mr. Gow showed the Sun a list of charges brought by the university against him as part of its internal disciplinary process. He is accused of unethical and potentially illegal conduct, refusing to cooperate with an investigation, and violating the university’s technology use policies.
Tenure policies vary by university, but in general tenured professors cannot be fired over their work. They can, however, be fired for “cause” if they’ve broken the law or committed disciplinary violations not related to free speech.
The charging letter says Mr. Gow’s pornographic content clearly associates him with the university and states that his books describe “apparently illegal conduct,” including paying hundreds of dollars to strippers as well as an escort for sex. The letter says he received emails on his work account for “sex toys and other sex products which included graphic and pornographic imagery,” and that he used his work email to purchase porn-related books. The university also says he failed to cooperate with investigators as he waited to hire an attorney, and says he deleted information from his work computer before handing it over to investigators.
“I don’t think you can fire a person for being careful under the circumstances,” Mr. Gow says of the charges about not talking with investigators until he had an attorney. He said several of the items the university says it found on the computers were things that he and his wife “never saw before” and “don’t know how those got on there.”
He says the university is using the charges as a distraction from “what the key issue is — free speech,” a topic the administration is “not willing” to take up.
“They’re trying to shift the focus onto these other, what I would say are very flimsy charges,” he says. “And they’re using them as a pretext for the real reason they want to fire me, which is because they don’t like what my wife and I have done on the internet, the books and videos we’ve distributed.”
The university’s hearing committee will deliver a report, vote on it, and issue an opinion explaining its decision, he says. When it comes to next steps, he says the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression has indicated it is willing to provide him with an attorney.
He is also working on a third book that will include details of the UW scandal and says that while he’s not sure what pornographic videos he will produce in the future, he and his wife “would like to retain our right to make those decisions for ourselves as any American should.”
He has heard from people who have expressed concern about the broader issues to come in the debate over what employees and students are allowed to do in their private lives.
“We’ve heard from people who pay their way through college with OnlyFans and they are very worried if somehow they were found out what would happen to them. And so, we have great concern about that because look what’s happening to us,” he says, adding that, unlike many creators, he isn’t producing porn to make money. “We’re doing this for our own enjoyment and free expression.”
UW-Lacrosse is withholding comment as the case is pending, a representative tells the Sun.
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