because my thesis contains published papers, ..., but f 'em

Excluding the part in the middle because I don't wanna repost potential issues for you. I just wanted to comment that that is terrible. People often talk about the siloed nature of research in industry, without considering that academia supports the draconian publishing system. I understand IP protection, but IP protection doesn't have to mean no access. This is such a huge issue in the bio- world (biostats, genetics, etc).