Imperial College is, I'd suggest, in an odd position; it is very male-dominated, and although this is not to the extent it was when I was an undergraduate (some 85%) most undergraduates are still male. In my time there was certainly an odd combination of academic excellence with what I can only call a 'rugger-bugger' culture. Without excusing it one iota, this may explain why there could be a mindset that not only allows this piece to be written - there are always idiots - but lets it through to be published. As you've pointed out, the apology is very half-hearted; it should, in very abject terms, be explaining how wrong the piece was, how stupid it was to allow it to be published, and above all what damage might be caused by in any way encouraging the view that this was appropriate behaviour.

Unless Imperial has changed a lot since I was there, it has a lot of rather socially-inept young men who find it difficult to even get to know a woman. I know; that was me, once. In a student body of several thousand, even if only a very small fraction of these are nudged towards thinking that just maybe getting a woman very drunk (let alone resorting to sedatives) would get them somewhere, the result could be very bad.