UW again fires professor for online porn
(The Center Square) – University of Wisconsin-La Crosse’s former chancellor has lost his job again University of Wisconsin regents on Friday fired Joe Gow.
Gow first lost his job late last year when the university learned he was making pornographic movies with his wife and sharing them online.
He was employed as a communications professor at the La Crosse campus, but university leaders said he sullied the school’s reputation and had to go.
Gow accepted his dismissal as chancellor but fought his dismissal as a professor.
He argued his porn movies, as well as the cooking show that he and his wife had on YouTube that featured porn stars, was an expression for free speech.
He fought to keep his job on First Amendment grounds.
It didn’t work.
Gow’s lawyer, Zach Greenberg, from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression slammed the University of Wisconsin on Friday after Gow’s firing was finalized.
“In a major blow to academic freedom and faculty free speech rights, the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents has terminated tenured Professor Joe Gow for producing sexually explicit content off hours,” Greenberg said in a statement. “FIRE has said time and time again: public universities cannot sacrifice the First Amendment to protect their reputations. We’re disappointed UW caved to donors and politicians by throwing a tenured professor under the bus.”
UW regents voted to fire Gow in close session Friday and didn’t offer any comments after their vote.
Gow has said he may sue to try and keep his job.
