Are these people retarded, or insane? Mizzou Just Never Learns
I suspect that they are just terminally, willingly, spinelessly naive. Willingly naive is a kind of denial of reality so it is not too far from insane. They will not admit to themselves that they are being played because that would expose their moral and spiritual frailty.
The world, and academia, needs more Prof. Petersons and fewer profs and administrators who fold like a cheap camera, as they used to say.