Immorality as 'Freedom' in Education

The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse fired its Chancellor, Joe Gow, after it was revealed that he was making pornographic videos with his wife and placing them online. The Board of Regents voted unanimously to terminate his employment, arguing that his actions opened up the university to “significant reputational harm.” It doesn’t sound particularly unusual in our age for such grounds of termination, but in a prior time, it would have been more likely that he would have been fired because he was immoral.

Universities are now proposed to be somewhat morally neutral, as if they could transfer knowledge to students without worldview or moral compass. Students and teachers alike though, are people. They don’t just absorb data. They learn the meaning behind it, and it influences how they think and who they become. The university of old was very familiar with this notion. They were honest about it. The university was to form the man—morally. It wasn’t generically to “open the mind”, it was to guide him toward Truth. It was to close his mind against errors. That’s what university means etymologically, to turn toward the One.

The Chancellor (and apparent pornographer) was outraged by his firing, arguing that his actions fall under Constitutionally-protected speech. He’s not the first to argue that pornography is speech, of course, but the argument seeks to wedge a square peg into a round hole. Actions are not speech, and immorality is not a right. Yes, I know, someone will indignantly screech, “Who determines what morality is?” And therein lies so many of our problems. An unwillingness to point to God, and the Christian faith, as the source of morality has left so many questions unanswerable by contemporary pundits and lawmakers alike.

Do we want people who are engaging in immoral acts to be guiding the formation of young men and women? The fact that there are so many examples of immoral professors does not change the question. It is indeed the norm—but it should not be. An unwillingness to push back against what is typical leaves traditionalists constantly losing ground in our culture. To reverse the tide is to fight against what has become acceptable and what has been normalized.

The former Chancellor, Joe Gow, is quoted as saying, “When reasonable people understand what my wife and I are creating, it calms them down.” In other words, those that he spends time with consider his behavior to be acceptable. It’s not surprising, in our age, and especially in academic circles. This was not always the case, however.

In 1941, an Anglican bishop rallied New York against Bertrand Russell, one of the most famous philosophers in the world, who was teaching at City College. In Russell’s books, he had written that, “I am sure that university life would be better, both intellectually and morally, if most university students had temporary childless marriages. This would provide a solution to the sexual urge.” His recommendation of sexual relations outside of the context of a real marriage, among people that included some minors, caused him to lose his professorship.

In making his decision, Judge McGeehan wrote: “…his appointment violates a perfectly obvious canon of pedagogy, namely, that the personality of the teacher has more to do with forming a student's opinion than many syllogisms… Academic freedom does not mean academic license. It is the freedom to do good and not to teach evil. Academic freedom cannot authorize a teacher to teach that murder or treason are good.”

This was 1941, in New York. That’s much more recent than most people think when they imagine an age that is concerned with morality—but we have fallen rapidly. Now, few are even aiming at a moral curriculum or professorship.

Too often, one even hears ‘conservatives’ say such things as, “They just need to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic, without ideology.” It’s a well-intentioned idea, but doing so would only leave a giant gap that would surely be filled by something inevitably. We are made for more, and if we are deprived of the truths that ought to be written on our heart, we remain hollow, until something attempts to fill it. C.S. Lewis warned, “The right defence against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes.”

We should celebrate victories like the firing of Joe Gow—not because we revel in his loss, but we applaud acts of justice, the protection of decency, and the defense of the young.