Employees acting in their official capacities, just like any organization.

> how can a college slander?

Same as any newspaper or corporation can slander. In this case a dean acting in her official capacity (she was at the protest for her job) distributed a libelous flyer.

> "local speech codes" = whatever offends the sensibilities of small town Ohioans.

The appeals were not decided by small town Ohioans.

1: speech is the primary weapon of the identity-obsessed ideologues who are behind this whole debacle

2: those same ideologues claim that speech is violence, silence is violence

3: a simple refusal to use a made-up term - the can of worms called pronouns is a good example - can lead to loss of employment, imprisonment (now in Canada and Ireland, possibly elsewhere)

4: the 'speech codes' imposed by these ideologues is a constantly moving target with the above named consequences for violations of those codes

...it is clear that the ideologues in control of Oberlin have fallen on their own sword.

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Will they learn anything from this debacle? No, probably not, they'll just chalk it up as another instance of systemic racism by the patriarchy or some such nonsense.

The solution would be to take control away from these ideologues but this is up to whatever institutions hold the reins of this college, the donors, alumni etc. If they do not take action the college will sink deeper and deeper into the bottomless pit of ideological strife where the scientific method and reason are abandoned for ideological zeal.