Before I begin, I will say that I don't know the student personally (I don't even know his name) and I don't think there's really any information being put forth here that will compromise any sort of privacy or anything.
This student was suspected of cheating on the first exam. He didn't cheat during the exam, but he went home, changed some answers, then brought it back under the pretense of a regrade. The other TA felt as if something was funny, and made a photocopy of his second exam. Sure enough, he came back for regrades again, and was caught red-handed.
I would be completely oblivious to this if the student had not come to the professor's office to beg (literally) for mercy. I happened to be there to help him grade the final exam. He was an international student and kept asking for "forgiveness" (which is an entirely separate matter). He was clearly distraught by the prospect of being forced to leave and took a physical posture of submission by being on his knees. He cried a lot and kept repeating "forgive me, professor."
I found out later that this student was already on academic probation for poor grades, and that he was not doing well in his other classes. Failing this class would mean an automatic dismissal, but so would being caught cheating. The personal side of his story was that his parents worked very hard to send him out here, and there was an implied sense of shame if he were to return home because he was kicked out of school.
What do you do in this situation and what are the guiding principles?
As a Christian, my entire system of beliefs is based on grace and the delicate balance of mercy and justice:
Micah 6:8 -How do you act justly while simultaneously demonstrating a love for mercy in this situation? I talked with the other TA for a little bit about this student. He felt bad for the student and didn't want to come down hard on him, because people make bad choices and make mistakes, and they should not be held against them forever (being kicked out of school probably means he's going back to his own country, and he may never get the chance to come back). That sounds good because it sounds like mercy.
He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
But what of justice? This student has already shown that he was borderline because he's already on academic probation. He was clearly caught cheating on an exam (the type of cheating that requires him to lie to the face of his TA). He did the crime, he doesn't come in with a clean record, and it is appropriate for him to receive some sort of punishment for this. That sounds good, because it fits exactly with how you're supposed to respond to a student caught cheating: Report it to the appropriate academic council and let the system do its thing.
The thing that got me the most about this whole thing was that the student never seemed repentant for what he did. All the time that he was saying "forgive me, professor" he was also trying to negotiate some sort of deal. He wanted to receive a D instead of an F (even though we had not even graded his exam, scoring 0 on the second midterm was almost certainly going to make him fail the class). He wanted to do something to avoid getting kicked out. To me, this weighs very heavily on the scales towards taking the hard line of justice.
Grace is undeserved favor, but mercy can depend on actions. People who "turn their lives around" are more deserving of mercy than those who continue to do wrong. In his approach to the professor, this student showed that he was not concerned with the actions that led to his situation, but the consequences of his actions. He was not interested on being on the side of truth, merely avoiding punishment.
In my mind, this student has already failed himself out of school. He didn't have just one bad quarter, or just one class where he was not doing well. He was on the road to not succeeding in school. Even if the professor gave him a D in this class, the student would not be much better off than he was before. He would still be just a borderline student, he is likely to cheat again (he's also likely to have cheated before). Allowing him to get away without recognizing the magnitude of his situation is not likely to benefit him at all. Perhaps he will finish and "earn" a degree. Or perhaps he'll fail out in the next quarter, or the next year. It's hard to say. If you send him away, he may understand that his actions have consequences, and then proceed to earn a degree in his own country (with integrity).
This reminds me of a story from one of my high school teachers, which I will post separately. Click this link to the story.
