LA CROSSE, Wis. — The Universities of Wisconsin reportedly spent over $130,000 investigating recently terminated communications professor and former Chancellor Joe Gow for creating and appearing in adult content.
An invoice provided by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), an organization that assisted in Gow’s legal defense, shows that the UW system paid legal firm Husch Blackwell $133,365.75 “for professional services rendered and costs advanced through April 30, 2024.”
Husch Blackwell was engaged by the Universities of Wisconsin to investigate allegations of misconduct against Gow, according to the invoice.
The document goes on to detail the specifics of the investigation, which included analysis of documents, books, social media and videos — presumably including Gow’s amateur pornography — as well as witness interviews and forensic review of multiple electronic devices.
The money, which ultimately comes from Wisconsin taxpayers, was spent at the same time that the university system was preparing to ask Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers for nearly a billion dollars in state funding, according to an August AP report.
“Universities of Wisconsin regents agreed overwhelmingly on Aug. 22 to ask Gov. Tony Evers for an additional $855 million for the cash-strapped system in the 2025-27 state budget,” the report says.
As XBIZ reported last month, Gow was first fired as chancellor, and later, following a hearing, stripped of his tenure and terminated, for posting adult videos with his wife on an OnlyFans account.
FIRE Faculty Legal Defense Counsel Zach Greenberg expressed dismay at a public university spending such a large amount on investigating Gow's activities in the midst of crying poverty.
“Professor Gow’s pornography remains protected by the First Amendment and should never have prompted a misconduct investigation,” Greenberg said. “Wisconsin taxpayers should be outraged that their money is being wasted on witch hunts. Even one dollar is too much to spend on censorship.”
In an exclusive interview with XBIZ on the day he was formally fired, Gow emphasized the political and fiscal calculations behind his termination.
“What we’re seeing here today is the system president and the Board of Regents saying, ‘We don’t want to get a lot of grief from the far right, because we want to get our funding. So let’s just fire this guy ... we’ll do what the politicians want.’”