(The Center Square) – It cost at least six figures to fire UW-La Crosse’s former chancellor who made porn movies.
The Foundation for Independent Rights and Expression, which defended former Chancellor Joe Gow said an invoice shows the university spent at least $130,000 to remove Gow as a professor.
“According to records, the cash-strapped University of Wisconsin System spent more than $130,000 hiring a powerful law firm to investigate professor Joe Gow after discovering Gow’s (fully First Amendment-protected) hobby of making videos featuring a mix of vegan cooking and sex scenes with his wife,” FIRE said in a statement.
“Professor Gow’s pornography remains protected by the First Amendment and should never have prompted a misconduct investigation. Wisconsin taxpayers should be outraged that their money is being wasted on witch-hunts. Even $1 is too much to spend on censorship.” FIRE lawyer Zach Greenberg said.
Gow lost his job as UW-La Crosse’s chancellor late last year when the university discovered his porn movies.
Gow insisted he never used university equipment time to make the movies. But he shared them online, and UW leaders said that sullied the school’s reputation.
Gow, however, fought to stay at the La Crosse campus as a professor.
He took that fight all the way to university regents, who voted in late September to fire Gow because of the reputational damage they say he caused.
Gow and FIRE’s defense continues to be that he has a First Amendment right to make movies with his wife, and the university should not be able to silence him.
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