My students cheated a lot (and how I used R to prove it) (opens in new tab)

The author sounds like a major "Karen." Just because policies say you have to report something doesn't mean you can't pretend to have never saw anything in the first place. That would have been the correct move here seeing as this is academia and the stakes are so low.

I said this on reddit so I'll just quote myself: This professor invested way too much in trying to understand why his students were cheating and giving them a second chance. While it's good to catch the cheaters and document the cheating, creating an entirely new syllabus and assignments is way beyond the call of duty. Catch the cheaters, call them on it, give them failing grades, and let that be the lesson that they learn. When they actually want to learn the material, then help them. The vast majority of the students he quotes from are trying to play the game of passing, not actually trying to learn.