They wrote some racist and discussed some harmful stuff, yes, but they did it in private away from others. I also doubt that they didn't keep friendly with the people they were bantering about, maybe a few of them were outright friends too. Whilst I would disagree with them doing something in front of the affected people or even in a manner that causes shame, this was done in complete privacy and should not be subject to such penalties. I find that, usually, European universities were better at understanding the line between free speech and political pandering, but now I think that the UK is falling more in-line with the horror story that's the US with it's affirmative action and social-justice warrior identity politics.