Professor or provocateur? UW-La Crosse and Joe Gow argue whether he is fit to teach

ONALASKA — The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and its former chancellor, Joe Gow, battled over whether he deserves a future teaching career on campus in a hearing covering sex videos, computer access and whether the university's reputation will forever be known as "PornU."

Gow was fired as chancellor last year for creating sex videos posted on porn websites. A disciplinary hearing Wednesday and Thursday was the first step in a two-part process to strip him of his tenured faculty position as well.

"Everywhere I go, people are concerned," interim UW-La Crosse Chancellor Betsy Morgan testified. "Besides just the jokes, which are no longer funny, we don't want to be known as PornU. We're the top comprehensive (university) in the UW System. We want to be known for the quality of our academic programs."

Whatever the hearing committee recommends, the university administration will still likely take the case to the UW Board of Regents, which has the final call in firing tenured faculty. Gow has already hinted at filing a lawsuit alleging wrongful termination if the regents vote to dismiss him in their own hearing.

Allowing Gow to return to the classroom would continue the public spectacle that has dogged UW-La Crosse over the past six months, Morgan said. Gow has said, if asked, he'd take questions from students about his lifestyle before moving into the course material.

"When does it stop becoming all about this and start becoming about education?" Morgan asked the hearing committee.

UW System attorney Wade Harrison, who presented UW-La Crosse's case, said Gow "just doesn't get it." Painting Gow as provocateur more than a professor, he said Gow's pattern of poor judgment more than justifies revoking his tenure.

Gow called the administration's case an "egregious overreaction" based on "irrelevant, inconsequential, misleading, distorted and downright false" charges that stray from the central question of whether he is fit to be a faculty member. Tenure is based on the quality of a professor’s teaching, research and service.

"These bogus charges have nothing to do with that," he said, adding in his closing statement: "“They have led us in several unrelated directions, but ultimately they have taken us nowhere."

Is Joe Gow fit to be a faculty member?

More than 75 people packed a convention center meeting room near La Crosse to hear Gow and UW-La Crosse make their cases during nearly five hours of testimony.

In a cross-examination of the prosecution's star witness, Gow pressed Morgan for examples of how he harmed UW-La Crosse's reputation, pointing out the university's latest enrollment projections were positive and the budget was balanced.

Morgan conceded overall enrollment hadn't suffered but noted he hadn't been there "to witness the number of fires we've had to put out." Calls and emails poured in from ashamed alumni. One student went so far as asking for a new diploma without Gow’s name on it.

Two recent donor gifts came through only because Gow was gone and the donors felt more comfortable with the university's trajectory, Morgan said. Several other donors threatened to pull their money if Gow remained.

Robin Mueller, a 1978 UW-La Crosse alumnus and frequent donor, pledged to kill an endowed scholarship he planned to give if Gow returned to the classroom.

“I've asked (others) if you had an 18-year-old co-ed that you were going to send to a campus around the area, would you want them to go to the university where there's a porn star?” he said outside the hearing room. “And by the way, no one has said ‘Yeah, can't wait.’”

Others who attended the hearing also were opposed to Gow's return as a professor. One woman described herself as “anti-porn” and said he had no place teaching “young, impressionable” students.

Linda Dickmeyer, the longtime chair of the communication studies department where Gow would teach if he returns to the classroom, said she and other colleagues would hardly welcome him. She testified she and others periodically invited Gow to speak to their classes but he rarely engaged in the discussion topics, leading to the classes falling behind and professors wondering how to politely ask him to leave.

Gow said department faculty never shared these concerns with him.

Because decades had passed since Gow last taught, Dickmeyer said he would likely teach introductory communications classes taken by mostly freshmen students. The assignment created its own concerns, however, because the students were a "vulnerable audience" and Gow's "notoriety" would follow him into class.

"I’m very concerned again with a captive audience," she said. "That is not the place to talk about what he does with his hobby."

Joe Gow's books draw scrutiny for 'potentially illegal conduct'

Among the three charges filed against Gow, the most sweeping alleges he engaged in "unethical and potentially illegal conduct."

In books Gow and his wife published under pseudonyms, they wrote about hiring sex workers, which is illegal in most U.S. counties. They admitted in the books "we had technically broken the law" and wrote that “all the events described in this book are true.” An author's note describes the account as a “true story," with only some names and identifying characteristics of the people involved in it changed.

Under questioning by Harris, Gow said said the events in the book were “based on a true story" but not entirely true. He said this was a “pretty common approach” in the field of creative nonfiction.

“Some things are capital-T true and others are not,” he said.

Gow's invitation for adult film star Nina Hartley to speak on campus in 2018 also sparked questions. Harrison said Gow's failure to disclose his previous business relationship with Hartley, where Gow and his wife paid Hartley's talent agency to produce a sex video with them, was "unethical." Gow rejected calling it a business relationship.

Did Joe Gow 'refuse' to cooperate with investigation?

Another charge filed against Gow was his "refusal" to cooperate with investigators, which Harrison said amounted to "insubordination."

Some employees under investigation receive only a few hours of notice before being interviewed, said Daniel Chanen, who leads the UW System's human resources office. Investigators repeatedly requested meetings and waited about six weeks weeks before filing their report, a timeframe Chanen called "significant."

In the six months since Gow was fired as chancellor, he was on paid leave and drew roughly $50,000 of his faculty salary but "failed to perform his only assignment," Harrison said.

Gow argued UW System had applied its own subjective definition of what it means to participate in an investigation. He presented an email from an advocacy organization showing they had attempted to find Gow a lawyer on a pro bono basis, which failed to come through. Gow said his offer to answer questions in writing showed a willingness to cooperate. He expressed surprise when the investigation ended without warning.

Gow questioned the cost and appropriateness of hiring outside law firm Husch Blackwell to compile a more than 300-page report when the UW System has an entire office of lawyers.

Hiring an outside law firm ensures more impartiality in the investigation, especially when an employee is higher-profile, Chanen said.

None of UW's witnesses said they were aware of the investigation's cost. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel requested invoices and contracts associated with the investigation, which the UW System has not yet produced.

Gow also raised concerns about the hearing process posing a conflict of interest. UW System attorneys are prosecuting the case; another is advising the hearing committee of five UW-La Crosse faculty. The attorneys previously told Gow the arrangement was "routine" for these cases and lawyers maintain appropriate distance.

Analysis of Joe Gow's computers finds sex toy emails, porn website login credentials

A final charge alleged Gow violated information technology policies banning the printing, viewing and receipt of material regarded as obscene or pornographic.

Harrison scrolled through pages of emails sent to Gow's university email address advertising sex toys, which Gow dismissed as "junk mail."

Jerry Bui of FTI Consulting, a computer forensics firm, testified Gow used a university printer to print a “Co-Performer Consent and Release Form” for a porn website known as xHamster.com. Bui also said he recovered automatic login information saved onto Gow’s devices for several porn sites but no history showing visits to the websites. This could indicate Gow viewed the sites using a window that hides browser history, he said.

While the report said Gow deleted information from his computers before returning the devices, Gow presented documents showing the university computers were actually seized from his office days before he was fired. He cast doubt on the chain of custody associated with securing the devices.

Harrison rejected Gow's “conspiracy theory” related to alleged improper handling of computers, saying Gow provided no evidence to support this.

Gow fired back in his closing statement, calling the prosecution's evidence "circumstantial" and "suspect."

It's unclear when the hearing committee will weigh in on whether Gow should be fired. The process requires a recommendation be made "as soon as practicable."

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: UW-La Crosse and Joe Gow spar over porn videos, teaching ability