I was tipped off to this story, which I hereby designate a Ripley, yesterday, and regret not getting it up before the rest of the news media and blogosphere caught up.

The Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents voted unanimously this week to fire longtime UW-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow. UW System President Jay Rothman said the university leadership had discovered “specific conduct”that caused harm to the university’s reputation. 

The “specific conduct” was appearing in online porn videos with his wife.

The Naked Teacher Principle (NTP) holds that when a school teacher is discovered to have naked photos of herself or himself on the web, that teacher has no grounds for complaint if the school decides that the teacher is no longer acceptable as a member of the faculty. There are myriad variations on this scenario, most recently explored in the “The Naked Porn-Performing Political Candidate Principle” post in September. Still, for a university chancellor to challenge the NTP is mind-boggling.

The couple calls themselves “Sexy Happy Couple” on adult websites. On a social media account dubbed, “Sexy Healthy Cooking,” they direct users to their LoyalFans and OnlyFans accounts for “fully explicit scenes.” Rothman also said that he filed a complaint with the university to review Gow’s status as a tenured faculty member, and that an outside law firm will investigate the matter. I think that’s a much closer call: faculty members in a university should be largely immune from punishment for their bizarre or extreme off-campus activities. Being an extra-curricular porn star seems rather less alarming than what other professors have engaged in (like, say, tax evasion) while continuing their careers. A university chancellor, however, must conduct himself in a manner that does not bring ridicule and distrust down on his institution. That doesn’t mean that a university has to fire a porn star chancellor; it just means that the decision to do so is reasonable, and the ex-employee is ill-positioned to complain about it.

So, naturally, Gow is complaining anyway. The former chancellor says he was “stunned” by his dismissal. In an interview yesterday, Gow said he and his wife produced the videos as private citizens under their First Amendment rights, and Gow’s position as chancellor was never publicized. He argues that the board’s policy on academic freedom and freedom of expression should permit a chancellor to show his naughty bits online for cash. The Wisconsin policy states that members of the university community may not obstruct or interfere with the freedom of others “to express views they reject or even loathe.”

This was conduct, not “expressive speech,” however.

“I think the board’s reaction should concern everybody who cares about free speech and free expression,” Gow said. “I think they should have said, ‘We don’t really like what this is all about, but he and his wife have the right to put out these books and videos, and we have a freedom of expression policy that maintains that.'”

Gow is irate taht he wasn’t informed that he had violated any policies, adding that he didn’t receive a hearing. Is a hearing necessary when the videos speak for themselves? If he didn’t think he was violating any policies, why did he try to keep his double life secret? The Porn Star Chancellor says he hasn’t decided whether to challenge the firing, but he was stepping down anyway and still has a teaching job. A court battle will trigger the Streisand Effect. If he is capable of rational thought—which, given his conduct thus far, is a legitimate question—Gow should leave quietly. He’s embarrassed the school, and himself, enough already.

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Pointer: Rebecca Herron