As an alum, you may have much more influence than you might expect. President Cauce (who's contact information is prominently displayed on the UW website) may be unaware that alumni are not pleased with this.

Tell them that. Alumni support is critical for a university and if they feel their donation base is upset, change will happen.

Done, I emailed them this:

Hi,

I, and millions of others in the tech industry, saw how you handled a student's side project and are extremely disappointed in the hostile approach followed by an attempt to force him to work for free or be expelled.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42638626

This is the top tech site in the world and this is the #1 article on it currently with hundreds of concerned comments.

I founded a web design agency with 250 full time employees and due to this issue as well as the way the Sigma Chi chapter near campus and other fraternities have been treated, will be declining to provide any support in the future and will be lobbying Washington state and federal politicians to cut UW's funding.

Extremely disappointing.

Yeah I'm glad I didn't go there.