That's like asking if someone that went into a crowded place with a full-automatic and started shooting at people but "purposefully missing" is just testing how fast law enforcement reacts, you know, for science.
After something like 2 years of planning this out and targeted changes this isn't something "just done for science".
It’s more analogous to getting hired at the lock company and sabotaging the locks you assemble to be trivially pickible if you know the right trick.
The University of Minnesota case is an interesting one to compare to. I could imagine them being criminally liable but being given a lenient punishment. I wonder if the law will end up being amended to better cover this, if it isn’t already explicitly illegal.
After something like 2 years of planning this out and targeted changes this isn't something "just done for science".