Sure it was inappropriate. But, arrested and charged? That’s over the top and inappropriate.
Sounds like the arrest occurred after this became a 'campus protest' issue - so the campus police were probably directed by the administration to do so. In the bigger picture, this is about political correctness run amok, and people looking for 'victims' under every rock.
These 21 year olds were acting incredibly stupidly, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if they had been drinking. That's not an excuse, but if the 'campus activists' hadn't blown this out of proportion, this could have been handled internally - without public arrests.
Then you have the comments attributed to some student/students that 'it's bad enough we have to contend with racism here everyday..' I highly doubt that UConn is a 'racist' campus/environment, particularly in politically correct Connecticut. That said, there will always be some racism and other divisive prejudices in any society. The best way to deal with it is open dialogue and interactions. The worst way to deal with it is to suppress all free speech and thus sweep whatever underlying factors there are under the rug.