I was at UM for the last dozen+ years as staff, and we've been in A2 and in and out and around UM for decades....yes there are, and have always been lunatic fringe elements in academia - it comes with the territory of having a lot of really bright people, many young, who haven't learned what they don't know. It's not really any worse than it ever was. But there is also a huge base of brilliant people doing the work to educate, solve, fix, that keeps society moving through that 'arc of history' Obama likes to talk about.
The need for financial reform in the US university system is real and urgent, but higher ed in the US is one of this society's greatest strengths and we denigrate it at our future peril.