Look, I'm sure whatever beef you have with IT staff and admin policy is completely well-founded. But comparing the children's railway to IT limitations preventing graduate students from running their own WiFi networks is absolutely ridiculous. University IT has lots of good reasons for centralizing the administration and allocation of WiFi networks that have nothing to do with "children" (30 year olds) not being "respected". The fact that you can't get an exemption for your practical lab assignment is ridiculous, sure, but it has nothing to do with "children not being shown respect" and everything to do with how large bureaucracies behave in general for any institution, not just universities.

This is a complex area that I can't sensibly respond to in this forum. But JFYI I have written counter-policy documents and popular articles [1] that sparked investigations into how ITC is managed in educational institutions.

Things do need to change.

[1] https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/we-cant-teach-...

That article doesn't say anything about wifi networks, or about why you wouldn't be able to setup an isolated lab for students to try out attacking access points. And for such an isolated lab (no internet access is required), I can't imagine a university IT department having to be involved except possible to request that the lab have isolation to prevent the APs you're using from interfering with theirs.