Word describing a self-indulgent, moralizing, but ultimately phony/nonsensical attitude [closed]

Solution 1:

This situation is known as virtue signaling or grandstanding

The speaker is moralistically smug, piously self-assured, and self-righteous.

The administrators are complacent like someone else said, but they're also:

• mannered (because they're externalizing and faking a certain kind of politically-correct image)
• disingenuous (because they actually don't give a shit), and
• pretentious (because they not only feign being impressed by the speech, but they also pretend that they've accomplished a lot when in reality they've done nothing)

You could call their response contrived.

smug/pious: having a holier-than-thou moralizing rhetoric or countenance

(smug) "having or showing an excessive pride in oneself or one's achievements" (Oxford)

(pious) "making a hypocritical display of virtue" (Oxford)

(self-righteous) "characterized by a certainty, especially an unfounded one, that one is morally superior" (Oxford)

mannered: over elaborately and artificially delivered in manner

"having an artificial character" (Merriam)