The researchers, the researcher's bosses and pretty much every person in command at UMN had to sign off on this being an acceptable method of conducting research. This shows such an extreme lack of good faith or judgement on their part that I do not believe UMN could, or should ever be forgiven.
Their actions show nothing but criminally bad faith taking place, all the way up to the top.
The only rational response from the Kernel team is to revert all code submitted by any member of UMN and to permanently blacklist every person who has ever attended UMN or worked at UMN for any reason or any length of time.
The only way I could see this getting forgiven is if every party that could have cancelled the project is forcibly removed from holding any position of employment or enrollment at UMN, going all the way up to the head owners and managers of the entire university.