> I would let 100 people cheat if it meant I was sure 1 innocent student wasn’t punished unjustly.
This makes sense in the justice system, but in the justice system you often can find proof as to what happened, so the system still acts as a deterrent even if a fraction criminals get away with no punishment. In university assignments, most of the time it's practically impossible to find evidence of who copied from whom, so applying that principle would basically mean no enforcement, that everyone would be free to cheat and assignments would just not make sense at all.
Also, failing a course is far from such a big deal as going to jail or paying a fine. At least in my country, you can take the course again next year and the impact on your GPA is zero or negligible. You will have an entry in your academic record saying that you failed in the first attempt, but it won't be any different from that of someone who failed due to, e.g., illness.
If the consequences were harsher (e.g. being expelled from the institution, or something like that) then I would agree with you.
This makes sense in the justice system, but in the justice system you often can find proof as to what happened, so the system still acts as a deterrent even if a fraction criminals get away with no punishment. In university assignments, most of the time it's practically impossible to find evidence of who copied from whom, so applying that principle would basically mean no enforcement, that everyone would be free to cheat and assignments would just not make sense at all.
Also, failing a course is far from such a big deal as going to jail or paying a fine. At least in my country, you can take the course again next year and the impact on your GPA is zero or negligible. You will have an entry in your academic record saying that you failed in the first attempt, but it won't be any different from that of someone who failed due to, e.g., illness.
If the consequences were harsher (e.g. being expelled from the institution, or something like that) then I would agree with you.