speaking as a clemson alumni, the outrage is either for show, or because someone outed secrets in public.

none of the things that clemson did are secrets or new. the only thing that could be considered to possibly be unethical, imo, would be the class size shifting. but, again, this isn't new. my high school actually did this as well, in order to improve its appearance from outside metrics. and it isn't a secret. students received somewhat regular updates on what the president was doing/implementing, and i distinctly remember this being mentioned. maybe not worded the same way, but the concept was communicated.