A Chancellor, a Porn Star, and $5,000: Did a Wisconsin Campus Find the Limit to Free Speech?

In 2017 the University of Wisconsin system notched what it called a big win for free speech.

Raymond W. Cross, the system’s president, celebrated new rules, which called for punishing hecklers who interrupt speakers, as necessary to teach students “how to engage and listen to those with whom they differ.” And the policy was explicit: It was up to the campus chancellors to make that happen.

Joe Gow, chancellor of the La Crosse campus, took the message to heart. After the new policy’s approval, he quickly started thinking of how he could deliver, he told The Chronicle in an interview on Thursday.

His first steps were small. Using his office’s discretionary fund, he had pamphlets with the policy printed up and distributed to students. But that wasn’t enough. It would be better, he thought, to invite a speaker who could “live the policy,” someone who would be “challenging but not in a hateful way.”

Sexuality fit the bill. “Now there’s an area where we have a lot of controversy and challenge,” Gow remembered thinking.

He chose Nina Hartley, an adult-film actress and public speaker who was more than just provocative. Hartley, who is also a registered nurse, had visited several campuses, including Dartmouth College, Harvard University, and the University of California at Berkeley, to talk about the role of pornography in society.

So in early November, Hartley came to La Crosse and spoke to a crowd of about 70 without much fuss. The next day the local newpaper published an article online with the headline “‘It’s OK to Like Porn’: Porn Star Nina Hartley Lectures UW-La Crosse Students on Sex, Adult Entertainment.” A backlash followed.

Cross heard it. In a letter that was dated November 6 but became public on Wednesday, he rebuked Gow, pledged an audit of his discretionary fund, and said a future raise may be withheld.

“I understand and appreciate your commitment to freedom of expression and public discourse,” Cross wrote. But “as chancellor, you need to exercise better judgment when dealing with matters such as these.”

The incident, Cross wrote, threatened to imperil “all of our funding,” in particular “our budget request and our capital plan,” and to exacerbate the system’s “struggle for greater financial independence and public trust.” In Wisconsin elections held the day of Cross’s letter, a Democrat unseated Gov. Scott Walker, but Republicans retained their control of the Legislature.

To skeptics of the supposed “free-speech crisis,” the episode is evidence that free-speech absolutists aren’t as committed as they seem to be. In other words, everybody likes free speech until their own sensibilities are offended.

Will Creeley, senior vice president for legal and public advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said Cross’s actions could chill discourse in Wisconsin higher education.

“It’s going to send a message to students, faculty, departments, and now leadership that some speech is going to earn official reprimand if it meets with disapproval from higher-ups,” Creeley said. “That’s a message sharply at odds with the best traditions of academic freedom and free expression on campus that the university system has long been famous for.”

‘Moral Concerns’

Some people at La Crosse had expressed concern about Hartley’s planned appearance, but Gow said he had intentionally limited promotion of the event to the campus’s digital display boards. (He didn’t want it to be sensationalized, he told the La Crosse Tribune.)

From the start, Gow owned the event. He said he didn’t want others on the campus to feel as if they needed to front the money for an event they didn’t agree with. That’s one reason he chose to use the chancellor’s discretionary fund.

In the reprimand letter, Cross questioned why Gow had chosen to use the fund and promised an audit of it going back four years. Gow has since repaid Hartley’s $5,000 speaking fee out of his own pocket, and apologized for the controversy the speech created.

Some of that backlash came from the very official who signed off on the system’s new free-speech policy. Robert B. Atwell, a regent, wrote an op-ed in the La Crosse Tribune ripping Gow’s invitation. “Pornography,” he wrote, “is a horrible hill on which to plant the flag of free expression.”

Cross, too, noted that he had “personal, underlying moral concerns” about the invitation to Hartley, but that he was focusing on the policy implications of it.

Both Atwell and Cross had previously celebrated the system’s pro-speech policy. Atwell reportedly hailed the recovery of the “ability to talk to people with whom we disagree.” And Cross reportedly warned against just “reinforcing our existing values.”

Hartley also wrote an op-ed defending her appearance and questioning the need for Gow to have personally paid her. “The rearranging of funds to compensate for my time and distribution of knowledge is discriminatory, allowing UW-L to selectively pursue certain advocates while delegitimizing others,” she wrote.

In a statement to The Chronicle, Heather LaRoi, a university spokeswoman, said Cross had acknowledged his “commitment to freedom of expression and public discourse.”

“The primary focus of President Cross’s letter,” she continued, “is the need for the chancellor to exercise better judgment with regards to the planning and paying for a campus event.”

‘Beyond the Pale’

Close observers of free-speech issues said Cross’s handling of the event is clearly at odds with the values of academic freedom.

“It sends the signal that certain expression, certain topics are beyond the pale and should not be discussed,” Creeley said. “And that controversial issues are better left unexplored.”

Aaron R. Hanlon, an assistant professor of English at Colby College who often writes about First Amendment issues on campuses, said Cross’s position shows the “fundamental incoherence of what has been the conservative position on campus-speech issues for the past few years.”

That position, which declares all viewpoints should be welcome, is often used to argue in favor of allowing provocative speakers, such as Ben Shapiro and Milo Yiannopoulos, to appear on public campuses. In fact, it was Shapiro’s 2016 appearance at the University of Wisconsin at Madison — in which he was briefly interrupted by student protesters — that set the system’s regents on the path to crafting a new free-speech policy.

If someone has a problem with Hartley because she is a sex worker, Hanlon said, that’s a political litmus test that is incompatible with free speech.

Hanlon has advocated in the past that some speakers who don’t bring any substantive academic value and instead only cause trouble or want to heckle students could be barred from a campus. But someone like Hartley appears to be speaking thoughtfully, he said.

And the focus on Gow’s judgment, Hanlon said, implies there was something wrong with Gow’s choice of speaker. But why?

“Somebody needs to explain to us why a sex worker talking about safe sex is more dangerous or more of a threat to the shaping of the character of our students than somebody arguing the supremacy of the white race or that we need to resegregate ourselves because we can’t live together,” Hanlon said. “Somebody is going to have to make that case, and I don’t think it’s possible to make that case. I think that’s the answer there.”

Chris Quintana is a staff reporter. Follow him on Twitter @cquintanadc or email him at chris.quintana@chronicle.com.