Hah, Gendo, I know you're smarter than that. Knowingly publishing something illegal is absolutely making a statement. The only reason to keep it in would be to make a statement, at least as far as I see, there isn't any other reason to keep the work in the anthology. And that is the tone of the conversation in the comments here, that removing it is an affront to freedom of speech or expression.
If you don't know the risk of releasing such a work in the west in today's atmosphere, I can't really help you. For the sake of your point, supply and demand is going to regulate prices, not influence censorship. And not making money is irrelevant to a publishing house getting sunk by a lawsuit or public defamation.
In the US this is very much not illegal, were it explicitly pornographic it would still not be illegal but this isn't even that. The removal is a statement far more than keeping it would have been. Keeping it is the neutral position, it is what was originally published and what they are claiming to be republishing in the west. Removing the chapter is action on top of that, and there can be many reasons for that like activism or financial incentives. Now there is nothing I can do to stop them making boneheaded statements about disliking Itou Hatchi's art other than not buying from them, but that doesn't make it not a statement for them to refuse to publish yuri they dislike.
There is no more risk publishing this than any other yuri manga. Explicit loli hentai is sold freely and makes plenty of profit in the US, the decision is either entirely self-serving or based on some prediction of the effect on sales would be. I don't get your point about lawsuits and defamation, are the characters in this based on real people whose likenesses were used without their permission? As far as I know in law if this were explicitly pornographic nobody could even claim to be an injured party unless they were sent it unwillingly over a common carrier.