Hearing on the fate of Chancellor Joseph Gow’s vegan porn

An upcoming hearing convened by the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents will make a final decision on whether a professor and former chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse will be stripped of his tenure and fired for making and appearing in online pornography. Professor Joseph Gow is not shy about his online activities, which he says are free speech protected by his tenure status.

Mr Gow has retained his permanent position until now, having been sacked as chancellor last year after state authorities uncovered what they called “abhorrent” online behaviour, which included appearing in pornographic videos for OnlyFans with his wife, Carmen Wilson, and running a YouTube channel where he and Ms Wilson cooked vegan meals with adult film stars.

A UW-La Crosse faculty committee unanimously recommended firing Mr. Gow, a communications professor, in July. To fire a tenured professor, whose right to free speech is inviolable, the university had to show “cause” or disciplinary infractions for which liability could be assumed. The university found that Mr. Gow violated university policy by invoking his university employment in his pornographic films; by hiring “sex workers” within an hour of campus; and by creating a conflict of interest when he invited the “sex worker,” porn star Nina Hartley, 65, to perform on campus after meeting her during a filming session.

The UW System Board of Regents committee then scheduled the upcoming hearing, with oral arguments scheduled for Sept. 20, according to a document provided by Mr. Gow and reviewed by Sun. Following the hearing, the committee will hold a closed session to make a final recommendation on Mr. Gow’s permanent status and forward its recommendation to the full board for consideration at an upcoming meeting, which could be as early as Sept. 26.

“This is taking a lot longer than I would like it to,” Mr Gow told The Sun. “I think it’s a very serious matter, trying to sack a tenured faculty member because of something he posted online. And that’s why I think the administration is being very cautious about this.”

He says he feels the university is “treating him like a criminal” as the decision gets closer.

“It’s a very unpleasant feeling,” he says, adding that he was sent a document saying he was on leave until further notice. “As part of this leave, I’m not allowed on campus without a police escort,” he says, adding that he considers it “repressive.”

When he was fired as chancellor, Mr. Gow lost $250,000 a year in administrator pay but kept $90,000 a year in professor pay. Mr. Gow says he and his wife have been maintaining their YouTube and OnlyFans accounts during his suspension. A YouTube cooking account, “Sexy Happy Couple,” in which the couple is fully clothed, doesn’t earn them any money, he says, but their sexually explicit OnlyFans account generates income that the couple will likely rely on if he loses his permanent position.

“We have people on OnlyFans who will pay to see our videos, to see the sexual parts of them,” she says. “And we don’t make a lot of money there, but we’re very concerned that if the regents fire me from my permanent position, how are we going to pay for our health insurance? So we generate a few thousand dollars a month, which should cover that if the worst happens.”

Mr Gow has for months maintained that the issue is one of free speech, arguing that it is hypocritical for the university to uphold “academic freedom and freedom of expression” as its policy while opposing pornographic content that he posted “in his spare time and on holidays”.

“This is unprecedented,” he says of his ongoing saga. “I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like this before.”

The Sun contacted UW System, which said it could not comment because it was an “ongoing personnel matter.”

Mr. Gow’s online activities were publicly available from his long tenure as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, although he did not give his last name. It was only after university administrators discovered that Mr. Gow had been producing pornography last year that he was dismissed as chancellor, and the university system began proceedings to strip him of his tenure and fire him outright. UW System Regent President Karen Walsh said he “showed a reckless disregard for the role entrusted to him at UW-La Crosse to serve the students, faculty and staff, and campus community.”

“We are disturbed and disgusted by his actions, which were completely and undeniably inconsistent with his role as chancellor,” she added. In a charge sheet released earlier this year and reviewed by the Sun, the university accused him of “unethical and potentially illegal conduct,” failing to cooperate with investigators and misusing school computers and an email account.