Employers in general require a degree of discretion in determining whether an employee is acting in a fashion that discredits their organization. Not absolute discretion, to be sure-- however, I believe the University of Wisconsin is acting within its rights to terminate Mr. Gow's employment, granting that reasonable people could disagree.
Many persons (like Mr. Gow) are mistaken in asserting that 1A freedom of speech rights require employers to tolerate any and all behavioral or rhetorical excess. 1A restrains the Government, not society at large and all organizations therein. Mr. Gow would have strong basis for complaint were he legally prosecuted for his extracurricular frolics. That's not the issue here.
I believe the panel did not recommend. He lose his tenure for making porn with his wife. I’m pretty sure the panel recommended he lose tenure for posting online such videos for his potential students to see.
This might be the rare instance where I disagree with FIRE. I absolutely think he should lose his job and he absolutely did display terrible judgment. There’s no way he could be an effective teacher with his students knowing this stuff is out there. The rules are different when you’re dealing with children.
Porn brings a host of issues along with it…primarily a form of addiction that deadens normally enjoyable, real life sexual intercourse. It can be abusive (some are forced into the trade by abusive partners or drug addiction) and readily demeans certain people.
Then there is the 1st Amendment. Our raunchy professor didn’t require his students or peers to watch. He apparently didn’t make it while on the school’s clock, and he has been mostly open (as far as I can tell) with his “hobby.”
I’m not sure where I stand on this. He is, potentially, doing something harmful to his clients (students) but he has a clear right to create what he is creating.
Tenure is tenure. It's ironic that he could have produced videos wearing a keffiyeh and shouting death to the Jews, and he'd probably get promoted to department chairman rather than getting fired, but universities are funny about that kind of thing these days.
I'd feel some grain of support for this guy, ordinarily, but I've lost so much respect for colleges and universities over the last decade that I can't bring myself to care about his quest to free willy or whatever he's doing in the onlyfansverse.
Hmm, now if TFP endorses the stance in this article that this is a First Amendment issue, and the couple has every right to mess up sofas, etc. (ha) etc. with their sex videos in the privacy of their own home, etc., then I don't want to see ONE opinion piece or article referring to Vice President Harris' dating life in the early 1990s.
You are confusing a right to free speech with a one way street. Our professor has every right to make porn and we have every right to question him for doing so. Harris had every right to “porn” her way to high office and we retain the right to question her for doing so,
Funny, how you use “porn” in parentheses to describe a single woman dating who she wants to date, and f*cking who she wants to f*ck, for whatever reasons. “Porn her way up to high office.”
Wow.
I don’t think she filmed it and put it for sale, either. And why, in 2024, do we care who a POTUS candidate dated and f*cked when they were young and single?
I mean, should we open up “First Amendment” and look at Trump and his relationship with Epstein before his presidency? The 34 guilty verdicts against him? The lawsuit filed against him by a young woman who alleges that he raped her when she was 13? How about the Trump favorite: “Grab Em’ by the P*ssy?” It’s funny. Trump’s “porned” his way into everything! He loves “porn”, but according to Project 2025, we won’t be allowed, Patrick, nor the good college professors!
Damn, JFK f*cked/”porned” a known German spy, Inga Arvid, during WWII, when he was single, and still became POTUS!! Imagine that? Let’s not even talk about the “porning” he continued to do in the White House.
Oh, and God forbid a woman, young and single, makes her own decisions on who she dates and f*cks, and why. Sort of like JFK? If the allegations were true—and I don’t care really—and she used what she had to get what she wanted, what’s the problem? Oh, that’s right. It’s a woman we’re talking about…
And now…you are starting to get it. I am apolitical on this issue (the porn story and Harris story). Indeed, if you must know, I am voting for neither Harris (a poor politician on her best day) or Trump ( a liar and thoughtless loudmouth).
You are trying to make it about your puny, puny “party” politics…I am replying with reference to that pesky First Amendment you so horribly misunderstand.
I think it's you who misunderstands, and I always love it when the response is "just so you know, I'm not voting for either." Yeah, right.
Nope, I do believe you are the one who said VP Harris "porned her way to high office." Your response speaks volumes. Who's trying to be the puny one again?
Let me guess, you are voting for Marianne Williamson? RFK Jr.? What other tinfoil wearer are you voting for? BS.
Please feel free to wallow in your self-selected ignorance of lowly “party politics.” I will continue to discuss the intricacies of the First Amendment with the adults. You keep your pathetic insults and entirely wrong “guesses” about my voting choices…you seem to enjoy them.
These folks are f&*@ed up. Kinky shit has existed for a long time (hello Marquis de Sade), but it was understood to be beyond the pale.
The Red Light District is not going away. But when The Red Light District becomes Main Street...well.
I've taught for a long time. Can you imagine students who find out this dude's "hobby", looks him up (oh, they will look him up), and then returning to class, where he is expected to elicit some respect from them.
What planet does he live on? I have absolutely no sympathy for someone that narcissistic and obtuse. Let him go full time and explore of the opportunities role playing in geriatric porn. His celebrity at Denny's will know no end!
Agreed. Even more important, he didn't use it for private personal purposes "behind closed doors". The moment he shared it online it was no longer "private".
It’s not really his private life if he’s posting it publicly for the world, and the people who employ him, to see. Like it or not, he represents the school, and they may not feel that he is the best representative given what he is posting. This is, of course, complicated by the fact that it is a public school and he does have the right to free expression which the government (and the school as his agent) can’t take from him. He might be more effective focusing on the government’s infringement of his constitutional rights rather than on whether his conduct is anywhere he’s business. Again, given that he’s posted it, it’s everyone’s business, and he wants it to be.
Everyone seems to think that the right to free expression is absolute. None of our personal freedoms (expression, press, religion, assembly, petition) are absolute. There are limitations. What is every leader of every institution in the US decided to put out online porn and then not take personal responsibility for the fall out? Come on folks, use some common sense. This doesn't even pass the HaHa test.
Good riddance, I prefer to live in a world where dignity exists and we have standards and expectations for people. The whole “Minor attracted persons” crap is a great example of where this leads. Life is better when have standards of behavior that exceed the absolute bare minimum of not committing a crime.
“Gow tells me what he does in his ‘private life’ with his wife is protected by the First Amendment. ”
How is it “private” if he puts videos on it online?
I feel like both sides are right here, contradictory as that may be. He has First Amendment rights, but at the same time, he’s showing amazingly poor judgment, and I don’t blame the school for wanting to get rid of him.
Employers in general require a degree of discretion in determining whether an employee is acting in a fashion that discredits their organization. Not absolute discretion, to be sure-- however, I believe the University of Wisconsin is acting within its rights to terminate Mr. Gow's employment, granting that reasonable people could disagree.
Many persons (like Mr. Gow) are mistaken in asserting that 1A freedom of speech rights require employers to tolerate any and all behavioral or rhetorical excess. 1A restrains the Government, not society at large and all organizations therein. Mr. Gow would have strong basis for complaint were he legally prosecuted for his extracurricular frolics. That's not the issue here.
I believe the panel did not recommend. He lose his tenure for making porn with his wife. I’m pretty sure the panel recommended he lose tenure for posting online such videos for his potential students to see.
This might be the rare instance where I disagree with FIRE. I absolutely think he should lose his job and he absolutely did display terrible judgment. There’s no way he could be an effective teacher with his students knowing this stuff is out there. The rules are different when you’re dealing with children.
Porn brings a host of issues along with it…primarily a form of addiction that deadens normally enjoyable, real life sexual intercourse. It can be abusive (some are forced into the trade by abusive partners or drug addiction) and readily demeans certain people.
Then there is the 1st Amendment. Our raunchy professor didn’t require his students or peers to watch. He apparently didn’t make it while on the school’s clock, and he has been mostly open (as far as I can tell) with his “hobby.”
I’m not sure where I stand on this. He is, potentially, doing something harmful to his clients (students) but he has a clear right to create what he is creating.
Eww!
The Jerry Falwells are coming out of the woodwork. They make cockroaches look lazy and insignificant
Tenure is tenure. It's ironic that he could have produced videos wearing a keffiyeh and shouting death to the Jews, and he'd probably get promoted to department chairman rather than getting fired, but universities are funny about that kind of thing these days.
I'd feel some grain of support for this guy, ordinarily, but I've lost so much respect for colleges and universities over the last decade that I can't bring myself to care about his quest to free willy or whatever he's doing in the onlyfansverse.
I'd be 100% ok if porn weren't protected by the 1st at all. I care much more about the free exchange of ideas than I do about perverts and libertines.
Hmm, now if TFP endorses the stance in this article that this is a First Amendment issue, and the couple has every right to mess up sofas, etc. (ha) etc. with their sex videos in the privacy of their own home, etc., then I don't want to see ONE opinion piece or article referring to Vice President Harris' dating life in the early 1990s.
First Amendment and all...ya know?
You are confusing a right to free speech with a one way street. Our professor has every right to make porn and we have every right to question him for doing so. Harris had every right to “porn” her way to high office and we retain the right to question her for doing so,
The actual First Amendment and all…ya know?
Funny, how you use “porn” in parentheses to describe a single woman dating who she wants to date, and f*cking who she wants to f*ck, for whatever reasons. “Porn her way up to high office.”
Wow.
I don’t think she filmed it and put it for sale, either. And why, in 2024, do we care who a POTUS candidate dated and f*cked when they were young and single?
I mean, should we open up “First Amendment” and look at Trump and his relationship with Epstein before his presidency? The 34 guilty verdicts against him? The lawsuit filed against him by a young woman who alleges that he raped her when she was 13? How about the Trump favorite: “Grab Em’ by the P*ssy?” It’s funny. Trump’s “porned” his way into everything! He loves “porn”, but according to Project 2025, we won’t be allowed, Patrick, nor the good college professors!
Damn, JFK f*cked/”porned” a known German spy, Inga Arvid, during WWII, when he was single, and still became POTUS!! Imagine that? Let’s not even talk about the “porning” he continued to do in the White House.
Oh, and God forbid a woman, young and single, makes her own decisions on who she dates and f*cks, and why. Sort of like JFK? If the allegations were true—and I don’t care really—and she used what she had to get what she wanted, what’s the problem? Oh, that’s right. It’s a woman we’re talking about…
And now…you are starting to get it. I am apolitical on this issue (the porn story and Harris story). Indeed, if you must know, I am voting for neither Harris (a poor politician on her best day) or Trump ( a liar and thoughtless loudmouth).
You are trying to make it about your puny, puny “party” politics…I am replying with reference to that pesky First Amendment you so horribly misunderstand.
I think it's you who misunderstands, and I always love it when the response is "just so you know, I'm not voting for either." Yeah, right.
Nope, I do believe you are the one who said VP Harris "porned her way to high office." Your response speaks volumes. Who's trying to be the puny one again?
Let me guess, you are voting for Marianne Williamson? RFK Jr.? What other tinfoil wearer are you voting for? BS.
Please feel free to wallow in your self-selected ignorance of lowly “party politics.” I will continue to discuss the intricacies of the First Amendment with the adults. You keep your pathetic insults and entirely wrong “guesses” about my voting choices…you seem to enjoy them.
Yeah, you know, you are right. I'll just "porn my way" to higher office. What adult coined the phrase "porn my way to higher office?" Hmm
It might be a Jeopardy question one day:
"The man-child who created the sexist phrase 'porned her way into higher office' about 2024 Presidential nominee, Kamala Harris"
BUZZER
Who is Patrick Jennings?
Please move on from the bizarre Mr. Gow. Seems more click baity than newsworthy.
Sorry, I'll gladly take the charge of "normie."
These folks are f&*@ed up. Kinky shit has existed for a long time (hello Marquis de Sade), but it was understood to be beyond the pale.
The Red Light District is not going away. But when The Red Light District becomes Main Street...well.
I've taught for a long time. Can you imagine students who find out this dude's "hobby", looks him up (oh, they will look him up), and then returning to class, where he is expected to elicit some respect from them.
What planet does he live on? I have absolutely no sympathy for someone that narcissistic and obtuse. Let him go full time and explore of the opportunities role playing in geriatric porn. His celebrity at Denny's will know no end!
I think he should be fired and he's trying to toe a moral gray area. We should stay from moral gray areas if we can.
This is a great question: What is "private" today?
I would submit that "behind closed doors" has and always should be "private".
CLOSED DOORS means no one can "SEE OR HEAR". Bringing a camera inside the room kills the whole premise.
Verdict: NOT PRIVATE
That wasn't that hard, was it?
Agreed. Even more important, he didn't use it for private personal purposes "behind closed doors". The moment he shared it online it was no longer "private".
It’s not really his private life if he’s posting it publicly for the world, and the people who employ him, to see. Like it or not, he represents the school, and they may not feel that he is the best representative given what he is posting. This is, of course, complicated by the fact that it is a public school and he does have the right to free expression which the government (and the school as his agent) can’t take from him. He might be more effective focusing on the government’s infringement of his constitutional rights rather than on whether his conduct is anywhere he’s business. Again, given that he’s posted it, it’s everyone’s business, and he wants it to be.
Everyone seems to think that the right to free expression is absolute. None of our personal freedoms (expression, press, religion, assembly, petition) are absolute. There are limitations. What is every leader of every institution in the US decided to put out online porn and then not take personal responsibility for the fall out? Come on folks, use some common sense. This doesn't even pass the HaHa test.
Good riddance, I prefer to live in a world where dignity exists and we have standards and expectations for people. The whole “Minor attracted persons” crap is a great example of where this leads. Life is better when have standards of behavior that exceed the absolute bare minimum of not committing a crime.
“Gow tells me what he does in his ‘private life’ with his wife is protected by the First Amendment. ”
How is it “private” if he puts videos on it online?
I feel like both sides are right here, contradictory as that may be. He has First Amendment rights, but at the same time, he’s showing amazingly poor judgment, and I don’t blame the school for wanting to get rid of him.