Seems like a pretty clear example of a powerful campus group imposing its views and free speech standards upon others. The main difference is that this will not be treated as a sign of cataclysmic attack on free speech of get a portion of the attention of the rapping librarian.
https://twitter.com/texastribune/status/1367239059991650309
A lot of free speech stuff, like much of the culture war stuff in general, is not about what happened, but about a) how serious the event was, and b) how typical it is. If you are upset about something, it is both very serious and a sign of a broader threat to your values.
These tendencies in argumentation seem to have gotten worse, elevated by confirmation bias and in some case, professional motivations. If your job is to explain that civilization is under attack, then naturally the unusual and inconsequential are elevated to be major threats. 
This is how we have arrived to a situation where tropes like the rapping librarian at Smith or Banh mi sandwich at Oberlin are elevated as more critical issues than legislation that restricts speech on campus. arcdigital.media/the-new-war-on…
I don't know how typical it is for donors and alumni to coerce speech from students. But it definitely seems pretty bad! It also speaks to one of the ways that power works on campus, when most of the examples we read about focus on the actions of students/faculty.
Lets say that students being coerced into speech at UT Austin or students unfairly blaming staff for racial profiling at Smith are both bad things. Both might get national news attention, but my guess is only the latter becomes grist in the culture war media.
Much of these debates on speech are about what is a) serious, and b) typical, but also c) what is new.
Much of what is new involves challenges to embedded power. To the extent that power succeeds in controlling speech w/o dissent, it is treated as the natural order of things.
Much of what is new involves challenges to embedded power. To the extent that power succeeds in controlling speech w/o dissent, it is treated as the natural order of things.
In other words, it is only by students challenging embedded norms (in this case a song they disagree with) that something becomes a story. If the actors suppress their dissenting views, free speech is being undermined, but it is not a story.
https://twitter.com/TexasTribune/status/1367239059991650309?s=20
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