Something I have noticed about higher education admins is that they hire consultants to do every project
I came to understand that this is because the career positions have such great benefits, often the last bastion of pensions, that these people literally go there to die.
So they take no risks and don’t try anything. They hire a consultant and if it doesn’t work out the blame lies there.
They also get big budgets to implement the consultant solution, which is bloated and terrible, so the department head gets more money every year to support it
Meanwhile, most university "enterprise" software is a festering pile of shit.
I'm very surprised by the extortion attempt, but sadly a massive overreaction doesn't much surprise me.