LA CROSSE, Wis.—A highly regarded university chancellor from the U.S. state of Wisconsin was outed last week as an adult content creator who produced materials with his wife and major adult stars.
Dr. Joe Gow served as the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
He and his wife, Carmen Wilson, produced adult content and published it on platforms like OnlyFans and LoyalFans.
Using the online handle “Sexy Happy Couple” and the branding “Sexy Happy Cooking,” the couple shared vegan cooking tips and recipes and held conversations with some of the most popular talents in the mainstream adult entertainment industry.
These names include the likes of Lauren Phillips, Sofie Marie, Nina Hartley, India Summer, Danny Mountain, Ryan Driller, Tylar Nixon, Will Pounder, and Damon Dice. The couple also posted videos of themselves and others.
But, this side gig didn’t sit well with the university system’s leadership, which is predominately appointed by the executive branch leadership, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents voted unanimously among its 18 members to terminate Gow at a special meeting held over video conference on December 27.
According to meeting documents, a resolution was adopted on Gow’s firing, and the university system’s general counsel was consulted on cases of potential litigation for violation of Dr. Gow’s First Amendment rights.
“Unfortunately, Dr. Joe Gow has shown a reckless disregard for the role he was entrusted with at UW-La Crosse to serve students, faculty and staff, and the campus community,” explained Karen Walsh, the regent president, in a press statement.
“We are alarmed, and disgusted by his actions, which were wholly and undeniably inconsistent with his role as chancellor,” she said.
Jay Rothman, the president of the Universities of Wisconsin, called Dr. Gow’s actions “abhorrent.”
According to Rothman, an outside law firm has been hired to investigate Gow’s alleged misconduct.
Reportedly, Gow was preparing to leave his position as chancellor and shift into a role as a tenured communications professor.
Being a tenured faculty, Gow has considerable protection from termination.
Despite this, Rothman has requested the individual who temporarily replaced Gow, interim Chancellor Betsy Morgan, to review his status as a tenured faculty professor and possibly fire him.
Gow feels his First Amendment rights were violated and that he wasn't granted the necessary treatment he is entitled to when the ethics of senior university executives are in question due to their personal beliefs and academic freedom.
"I did not receive due process, because when the Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents terminated me as chancellor they were required to follow Wisconsin Stat. § 19.85(1)(b)," said Gow in an email to AVN.
According to this statute, a "faculty member or other public employee ... is given actual notice of any evidentiary hearing which may be held prior to final action being taken. ... The notice shall contain a statement that the person has the right to demand that the evidentiary hearing or meeting be held in open session," with the Board of Regents.
At the time of this writing, the Board of Regents hasn't released any public documentation on the resolution terminating Gow.
"I did not receive a notice or a hearing, and the meeting in which the regents voted to fire me was held in closed session," he said.
Gow explained that his work, namely his videos and books on consensual sexuality among adults, is protected by the university system's policy for academic freedom and freedom of expression.
The "Commitment to Academic Freedom and Freedom of Expression" policy provides for the following:
"Each institution in the University of Wisconsin System has a solemn responsibility not only to promote lively and fearless exploration, deliberation, and debate of ideas but also to protect those freedoms when others attempt to restrict them. Exploration, deliberation, and debate may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the university community (or those outside the community) to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrong-headed. It is for the members of the university community, not for the institution itself, to make those judgments for themselves, and to act on those judgments not by seeking to suppress exploration of ideas or expression of speech, but by openly and vigorously contesting the ideas that they oppose. Indeed, fostering the ability of members of the university community to engage in such debate and deliberation in an effective and responsible manner is an essential part of each institution’s educational mission."
AVN reached out to some of the couple's co-performers for a reaction to the firing.
“It’s terrible that his rights are being violated for a consensual, legal activity, and clearly, they are happily married,” opined Sofie Marie, an AVN Award-nominated performer, in an email. “I really liked both of them; they are kind and sexy!”
She then asked: “What harm can be done by sharing their intimate relationship, and who is harmed by his actions? Since when is sex between a husband and wife somehow ‘abhorrent’ because it was recorded on a digital platform?”
The Daily Beast reports that members of the UW-La Crosse student body and alumni communities aren't too happy.
A few hundred people have openly signed a petition on Change.org calling for Dr. Gow to be reinstated as chancellor.
"The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse has lost our dear Chancellor Joe Gow as he was terminated unfairly on December 27," reads the petition's description. "Joe Gow should be able to continue his position at the university because the videos are low-key good."
Civil society organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union believe that what a person does outside of the workplace and a professional environment should not be the basis for what they refer to as lifestyle discrimination.
“The framers of our Constitution and Bill of Rights certainly embraced that meaning, especially with regard to the sanctity of family life,” the union argues in a 2002 document entitled “Lifestyle Discrimination in the Workplace: Your Right to Privacy Under Attack.”
"Nobody should be surprised by the University's actions, especially in an environment where apparently any type of relationship with adult entertainment or pornography seems to result in a career death sentence if any type of public attention occurs," said Corey Silverstein, a First Amendment attorney specializing in adult entertainment industry clients.
He is the managing attorney of Silverstein Legal, a law firm based in the village of Bingham Farms, Mich., outside of Detriot. "In this case, Chancellor Gow alleges that his First Amendment rights have been violated, and he very well may be correct," Silverstein adds.
"One of the more alarming issues here is the choice of words that the university has utilized in its public statements regarding the chancellor's removal of his duties, specifically calling the chancellor's actions 'abhorrent.' I'd say that is a terrible choice of words given the meaning of the word 'abhorrent,' which is defined by inspiring disgust and loathing or something is repugnant," he said.
"Is the University taking the position that a person engaged in protected speech and exercising his First Amendment rights is 'disgusting' or perhaps that two people engaged in consensual sex is 'disgusting'? I, for one, think that's a horrible message for a public university to be sending and wouldn't be surprised to that poor choice of words coming back round hurt the University."
Larry Walters of the Walters Law Group, based in Longwood, Fla., added his reactions.
"The publication of sexual activity is clearly protected by the First Amendment," Walters told AVN in an email. "I understand the former chancellor is considering a First Amendment lawsuit against the university. However, I suspect that will be a difficult claim to win based on previous Supreme Court precedent in a similar case involving off duty production of adult content by a government employee. Nonetheless, it is unfortunate that employees are still being punished for exercising constitutional rights."
Walters and Silverstein both serve as Of Counsel part-time practitioners for each other's firms.
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Lauren Phillips provided the following reaction:
