I think banning them for now is appropriate. Its a shot across their bow to let them know they have done something wrong. Moving forward if it was me I'd later re-evaluate such a wide ban because of the collateral damage. But at the same time, there needs to be redress for wrongdoing since they were actually caught. I'd definitely not re-evaluate until apology and some kind of "we won't waste time like this again" agreement or at least agreed-upon understanding is in place. Whatever shape that needs to be.

As for systematic issues, I'm not sure. But moving forward they'd want to confirm there aren't glaring omissions to let this happen again. Giving them suitable Benefit-of-doubt niceties might imply these are isolated cases. (But both of them?! Perhaps isolated to a small group of academics.)

Messy situation.

The university should be policing its researchers. Banning the whole university reinforces the incentive to do so. Otherwise the fact that a contribution comes from a university researcher would bear no added trust versus a layperson.

The ban was 100% political. Greg wanted to shine the spotlight as negatively as possible on the bad faith actors so enough pressure can be out on them to be dismissed. I guarantee hell reinstitute it the moment these people are let go.

this is the comment I came for, and perhaps the most damning oversight from the IRB that could put the university in a liable position.

I'm guessing its a committee of people almost operating just via a checklist, questions and their own general/specialist experience. They aren't necessarily specialists in what is being considered and are just there to provide basic sanity checks. But if some-complex-issue is not explained well in general terms, I'm sensing that this checking process fails in various ways.

Kind of like:

A: we're going to experiment with humans.

C: are you going to extract fluids?

A: no.

C: (ticks no) are you going to cut into them?

A: no.

C: (ticks no) ...

And so on.

Perhaps a new set of questions might help.

C: is what you are intending going to anger the subjects to the point they will take retribution?

A: yes

C: (ticks yes) how will it anger them?

....

And then expand from there. I'm sure they don't just stay within the checklist like robots.

Then again I'm probably wrong. Its just my imagination. But it could be true.

Someone made a good case that the IRB may have just been doing their job, according to their guidelines for what is exempt from review & what is "research on human subjects".

Nevertheless it is clear that UMN does not have sufficient controls in place to prevent this kind of unethical behavior. The ban & patch reversions may force the issue.