“Cancel culture” is boycott rebranded as a pejorative, to make the public mean and nasty for not wanting to heap figurative privilege on particular people anymore.
Those shrieking loudest about the loss of speech in the US are usually those who are privileged at the expense of speech that would improve conditions for others (do not speak of sick days for railroad staff, or making Walmart pay worker benefits to get their employees off social programs!)
Simple propaganda techniques are being leveraged to relabel free speech that suggests rethinking evolving society. Universities that are heavily dependent on government protections to exist fear change.
Unless research requires exotic hardware (nuclear reactor or something) there’s little reason to provide special accommodations for data mining academics that make up the majority of university work these days.
They can go freely speak in a park, or video chat about their findings. What’s funny is if you bring up how bloated with middle management unis have become you’re anti-intellectual too.
When a corporation, celebrity, or institution are complaining about being oppressed as they rely on “essential workers” who are effectively not allowed to speak out of line, I laugh.