LA CROSSE, Wis. — The Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents has fired veteran communications professor Joe Gow, stripping him of tenure for unremorsefully creating and appearing in adult content.
As XBIZ reported earlier this month, the Board of Regents held a hearing at UW-Madison’s Vilas Hall to weigh a faculty tribunal’s recommendation to terminate Gow’s employment.
Oral arguments were offered by Gow and the UW legal counsel office. After the hearing, the personnel matters committee met in closed session before making a recommendation for the full Board of Regents to consider at a meeting this week.
Gow released the following statement following the decision:
The regents claim to want to protect and promote free expression, but their action today shows this isn’t true. Late last year, when they fired me as chancellor, they said it was because the books and videos my wife Carmen and I posted on the internet were “abhorrent” and “disgusting.” And now, after a long and fraudulent process, they have fired me as a tenured faculty member, as well.
Because Carmen and I wrote and produced our books and videos on our own time—with no reference whatsoever to the UW System—they are protected by both the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the free speech rights outlined in the Wisconsin State Constitution. And now we look forward to defending our rights in a court of law, before an impartial judge or jury. We seek not only to protect our own rights, but to protect free speech and expression for all Americans.
Sadly, the Regents’ decision today also violates their own “Commitment to Academic Freedom and Freedom of Expression,” and negates the 130-year-old tradition of “fearless sifting and winnowing” in the search for truth on University of Wisconsin campuses. We might as well take down that famous plaque on the front of Bascom Hall, because the people who fired me today aren’t a “Board of Regents,” they’re a “Board of Hypocrites.” They have zero credibility on free speech and expression.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a free speech organization, helped fund Gow’s defense.
FIRE Faculty Legal Defense Counsel Zach Greenberg called the Board’s decision to terminate Gow for producing sexually explicit content on his own time “a major blow to academic freedom and faculty free speech rights.”
“FIRE has said time and time again: public universities cannot sacrifice the First Amendment to protect their reputations,” Greenberg said. “We’re disappointed UW caved to donors and politicians by throwing a tenured professor under the bus.”
In a document circulated before the hearing, the UW lawyers wrote, “At least one donor has stated publicly that he would ‘kill’ a planned scholarship gift if Gow were not terminated.”
The lawyers also stated that Republican State Sen. Rob Hutton, who chairs the state legislature’s Committee on Universities and Revenue, “has made clear that he, a member of the legislature that provides some of the University’s funding, is opposed to Gow’s returning to teach.”
Gow’s removal was encouraged by Rupert Murdoch-owned publications, as part of an ongoing, nationwide trend of Republican and conservative activists and operators waging stigmatizing smear campaigns targeting the livelihoods of individuals in diverse walks of life over their sex work, even when it is unrelated to their other occupations and activities.