This exact scenario happened in a class I attended some years back. Guess who felt nervous? Those who knew they cheated on the assignment and those who plagiarized habitually but didn't remember whether they plagiarized in this instance. The students who would never, ever, ever, copy-paste plagiarize did not feel the slightest bit worried.
That isn't true at all. I've never cheated once -- from elementary school through grad school -- yet I've been accused of it twice by professors. In one case, I created something so novel and excellent, the professor assumed I had taken it from an obscure book; in another, the professor misunderstood how my software worked and thought it couldn't possibly produce the output I claimed.
If a blanket accusation of plagiarism went out, I would be very concerned that another student might have found a way to copy my work, or that I might have subconsciously reproduced something, or that there might be some other false positive. I would definitely show up to find out what was going on.
I mean, equating anxiety about being accused of something to actual guilt... that's thoughtcrime. Implying that the GP is so stupid that he/she couldn't distinguish racism from bad mood... that's a straight insult.
Note also that the student is extremely condescending. His opening insinuates that the professor doesn't know the difference between correlation and causation, which is ludicrous. The student concludes with "And that, Panos, is where you failed". Again, unnecessarily condescending.
Is he racist? How is he able to determine ethnicity and statistically link it to cheating?
In this case the professor stated that collaboration was absolutely prohibited. Cite: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2776039
Personally, I think students should be able to discuss such assignments with each other, but I don't think you've accurately characterized the situation.
How can the professor determine which student cheated (or if both students cheated), without spending substantially time looking into it and talking to both students?
I had a professor who would actually give the person who did the work the worse grade, under the justification that you can never get rid of demand, but you could discourage supply. I thought it was a pretty clever solution. If I'd worked my ass off and somebody copying me got a 50% where I got a 0%, I'd be much more careful about what I shared.
You might believe that it's morally wrong to penalize the person who did the work, but I would have to disagree with you. Both Cheating and giving others the ability to cheat undermine the credibility of an institution and harm the legitimate efforts of others.
Then again, they'll do that anyway.
You miss a test, you get a zero. You go to the office of the dean with a note or explanation, get them to sign off that you should be allowed to retake, reweight, or whatever else it is that is needed, and then you go to the professor to deal with it.
The same sort of process should probably be put in place for plagarism. The professor flags you, and if you want to appeal, you go to the dean's office, they review the possibly-plagarized paper, and if they feel that the professor was in error, or that the student deserves the benefit of the doubt, they allow some sort of corrective action.
So, what you're saying is, it's too hard, the risks too great -- therefore we shouldn't try?
Why don't you hold the other professors to the same standard? It's not as if the other professors are oblivious to rampant cheating. But what's the point of trying to catch cheaters if it hurts the class dynamic and if those who get caught don't even get suspended? The students are clearly OK with cheating otherwise the cheaters would be ostracized by the other students. The school management clearly doesn't care, since they don't take action against those who are caught red-handed. The teachers who care are punished for it: bad reviews and bad class atmosphere in return for extra hours on top of an already heavy schedule. And yet you don't thank the professor for trying to fight against cheaters (and losing that fight) but you effectively criticize him for having tried in the first place!
> discussed it and concluded you were just racist
A teacher is in a bad mood when a significant portion of the class is exposed as having no academic integrity, doesn't want to teach the class but still, according to your own words was a "great teacher in the classroom" and "gave good lectures". How do you explain his bad mood? Why of course, he must be racist.
> all the students had received your email demanding those who plagiarized to come in to talk to you, naturally everyone, even those who didn’t cheat, felt very uneasy and worried
This exact scenario happened in a class I attended some years back. Guess who felt nervous? Those who knew they cheated on the assignment and those who plagiarized habitually but didn't remember whether they plagiarized in this instance. The students who would never, ever, ever, copy-paste plagiarize did not feel the slightest bit worried. I'm sure you "collaborated" with a friend on a small part of the assignment. Yeah, that's the word all cheaters and plagiarizers use.
> teaching evaluations don’t just measure your ability to give good lectures
If you give a better evaluation to mediocre teachers who smile and say sorry when they're late, then that's exactly the kind of teachers you're going to get instead of the teachers who are great in the classroom and who teach classes where you learned a lot.
Save your post and re-read it a few years from now. You'll probably be able to see it from a different perspective.