“The real crisis (not just at colleges) is that people are not using freedom of speech in a way that promotes reasoned discourse on policy, so American politics is descending into the kind of “we versus they” hate politics that leads to ruin in so many examples because people and politicians are so busy hating the other side that coming up with workable policy is no longer the priority.”
I have felt for a while that the underlying problem is that the US as a nation has been too successful for too long. There have been many great countries in the world in the past. They have generally failed in very similar ways. Greatness seems to create arrogance. Arrogance leads to a variety of issues such as running up large debts and/or squandering the national treasury, an over-reliance on “credentials” or “authority” rather than merit, a belief that a country can try to get the rest of the world to do what it wants leading to expensive foreign wars, arrogant leaders who talk but don’t listen, and a population that assumes that they should be handed stuff because they are “Romans” or “Athenians” or “British” or “Americans” or …
A few years ago I read The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. I found it fascinating. However, for me one of the main take aways is that the political debates of the Greeks 2,600 years ago were very similar to our political debates today. People are people, and we can repeat past mistakes just fine. Athens ran into huge problems when in the middle of the war with Sparta (and allies) Athens decided to fight another way in Sicily, to help an ally there. Thus they got themselves involved in a distant war that they couldn’t win, couldn’t end, and couldn’t afford. It is a good thing that we would never make that same mistake today. 
Perhaps what we are seeing is just what people do when they are citizens of a great country which has been great for too long.