Most of the US universities are to the left of Kim Jong-un. They live in an artificial world funded by the government and parents who somehow think they are guaranteeing their kids future.
I tried to do cooperative product development projects with a few universities in the past - Syracuse U, ASU and Cornell for example. After we got into the negotiating stage they expected my company to pay all costs , including their staff, and in return they'd get a 20% guaranteed annual royalty or license fee, lol.
I brought up the nature of marketing and product innovation and how a lot of great ideas eventually never catch on so we needed to consider a royalty only after a product hit the market and had sales. Their reply " that's your problem as a business - we just come up with the ideas" lol.
I finally just walked away from any projects with universities- they are completely clueless about the real world.
It's amazing to me how so many Western universities are exactly the same. My university in town has lost two crippling lawsuits, and were warned by my lawyers to never communicate with me again ever because I reserve the right to sue them, and there are probably numerous other former faculty and staff [and even students for that matter] who can sue them for past transgressions.
As you said, I think the issue is that people who work in universities live in an artificial [sheltered] world, where they experience little to no cognitive dissonance holding their moronic views because they don't need to practice them in any way. Of course if you work in an artificial environment [as you put it] with the cream of the crop top students from all over the world, you will think that multiculturalism is a good thing, and that unlimited government funding comes at no costs, and that regulations can be pushed to the limit with no negative consequences like regulatory capture, or any other of a variety of externalities.
What's funny is that it is actually the academy that produces mainstream academic economists who create the very ideas that refute the numerous far-left social justice activists working in the social sciences departments, a full 20% of psychology professors in either Canada or in all of North America, being actual straight up Marxists [true story - Jordan Peterson gave that 20% figure].
The only thing that would make these people change their views is if they actually went to live in the "diverse" parts of town - but no. They choose to live in some lily-White gated community while praising diversity. Complete hypocrites. And then their ridiculous views are pushed on other people who actually DO need to practice what those in the academy do NOT practice themselves, but only preach.