A lot of this is simply that people are far more replaceable in their jobs than they believe, so a lot of firing is not that they did something terribly wrong,

A lot of this is simply that people are far more replaceable in their jobs than they believe, so a lot of firing is not that they did something terribly wrong, but rather that replacing them is simpler than dealing with minor damage. So I suspect that if an affair made national news, the chancellor would be fired as well. Any change to the current ways of doing things would need to be societal, as otherwise whatever institution is employing the person would pay a high price.