They're on a website which is telling them that they're getting real exam questions and answers. It's reasonable to expect the questions and answers are not false and make, e.g., flash cards from them.

I'm not so sure I'd agree that failing the course is really appropriate. These people are paying to learn and the teacher provided wrong answers to students who may have legitimately been looking to study. Of course, 2/3 of the students admit it, so it's moot in those cases; at least some of those who claim innocence may have a reasonable claim.

Making flash cards from the exam's answer sheet is somewhat hard to defend on it's own. But when you're getting tested for your knowledge of a subject, and you make flash cards from an exam's answer sheet with blatantly incorrect answers that demonstrates a lack of knowledge, I have a hard time feeling sympathy.

To oversimplify, it's hard to defend a CS exam where a student selects (D) here and their excuse was that a flash card told them to do it:

How would you import a module in javascript?

A) import * from 'foo'

B) from 'foo' import *

C) import { * } from 'foo'

D) for i in `seq 1 10`; do echo "$i"; done

Note, there are a tonne of questions upstream from this like the validity of requiring these students to be taking this class, and requiring them to take this exam, and this format of testing students, etc. But keeping the question of whether the student's outcome was reasonably impacted by the decision to replace the answer sheet with a fake answer sheet on Quizlet, I have a hard time believing it did.

I don't specifically disagree that the student should have failed the course when they clearly do not understand the material. I know that's contradictory to what I said above; from one perspective (the university's; rule-based) they should fail and from another (the one for which I am arguing) they should not.

> whether the student's outcome was reasonably impacted

Here's where I have a hard time. It's very easy for the outcome to change from a failed test to a failed academic career. The method by which the professor determined who was cheating is dubious enough that it may have caught non-cheaters (from an ethical perspective; assume that the person who found the test on the website is genuinely intending to study the material which they believe is correct). I guess it's moot from the university's perspective if it's against their cheating policy. But on this ethics topic, I'd have to argue for the professor to have more doubts about their decision.

I see your point about a student attempting to pass the exam, studying the incorrect material, and failing the course. However, I see that situation as morally equivalent to the following scenario:

Sam has been having trouble understanding their evolutionary biology coursework all semester. It's coming close to the final and they are frantic to find any help they can get. Finally, they encounter the Answers in Genesis website and use it to make a set of flash cards. They drill those flash cards relentlessly in their best effor to learn the material. Come the final, Sam answers every question with "God did it and evolution is a lie".

I will agree with you that Sam has not behaved unethically and has not cheated on the exam, just as you believe that some students did not cheat on the ethics exam. That said, I do not believe that Sam should pass the final, as they have no understanding of the material. Even though Sam has put hard effort into studying, they have studied the wrong material and put zero effort into vetting their sources, so they deserve to fail the course.

Do you believe that Sam deserves to pass the course or am I missing an important difference between my hypothetical and the actual events?

They (at least the hypothetical ones who were not cheating in this philosophical sense) should not be allowed to pass the final and should not be expelled from the university for what they did. Admittedly, that enters the realm of personal opinion; the university’s policy is that a student using such a resource is cheating. The teacher also seems to be considering a lighter punishment so I don’t expect this case will carry any such injustices. (Really, I expect most or all of the students were cheating in the moral sense. The possibility that one wasn’t makes me question the policy.)

That being said, there does seem to be a certain assumption about the intentions of any student who would use this service. It’s not hard for me to imagine someone who has to and wants to bust their ass learning getting caught up in unfortunate circumstances (like the stress of wanting to pass a final causing the poor decision to use this study resource coinciding with their teacher poisoning said resource coinciding with the aforementioned stress causing them not to question the incorrect information they found ultimately resulting in their expulsion for otherwise not-necessarily-unethical behavior) because it’s assumed the professor was adequately tricky with their questions.

(Maybe I just need an hour off work to explain myself properly on a Friday.)

These days I find it fairly risky to think that it's reasonable to believe just anything you read on the internet because a website says so.