Comment by gpm

> I should have phrased it as asking them if they thought that transgression X constituted fraud.

I'm not sure you're right that they wouldn't think it's fraud at first glance, but I also think it's the wrong test. Words have meanings that result in an actual truth to the matter that is sometimes non-obvious.

A theorem isn't false just because it intuitively seems false until you spend decades trying to prove it and finally find the proof. Requiring people be cleanshaven isn't obviously discriminatory, until someone points out the existence and prevalence of pseudofolliculitis barbae and perhaps that an action being discriminatory doesn't actually require intent.

So I'd propose the correct test (and again, this would only be for a discussion in an academic context, which this is not) looks something like giving them access to the common dictionary definitions, and legal definitions, of fraud, and then asking them to define it. Then taking their definition and applying it to the facts at hand.

I don't think your average academic thinks academia has a special meaning of the word. I think they would simply acknowledge the dictionary definition as the correct one, and as a result I think this is plainly fraud even as the word is used in an academic context.

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I don't think anyone defines fraud as only deception relating to the core value proposition of the instrument of the deception.