The question obviously came up during their teaching, so it's become part of the course, whether they want it or not. OP also says that their peers think there

The question obviously came up during their teaching, so it's become part of the course, whether they want it or not. OP also says that their peers think there are ethical questions in regard to scraping. I don't see where you see politics in how they handle such questions. I'm not advocating they go on an extended lecture about their personal views on the political system that made the laws and what not. I'm saying that there's a difference between handling these kind of questions with "if you're not sure, maybe you should kindly ask the publisher of the data if they would be ok with you scraping/using it that way" and "if your lawyer says you're in the clear, fuck them and scrape away."