It is not reasonable to expect a calculus professor to routinely decide if they want to derail someone’s entire future because, for whatever reason (a whole other discussion), they tried to cheat on an assignment. A lot of systems don’t have multiple strikes or are otherwise deeply flawed (as well as routinely shown to be ineffective). If you cheat and are caught, you are expelled. There is no sense of proportion or nuance to those kinds of systems and to ask faculty and students to voluntarily enforce that for your school is a ridiculous expectation.

If you’re asking me if there are situations where a student should be expelled because of cheating, the answer is yes. But I would say there are a lot of factors that have to be considered. It certainly can’t be one size fits all, which a number of institutions do. Otherwise it is not “justice” in the slightest. It’s taking a “tough on crime” approach to young adults in school enforced by their educators and peers, which is…well, let’s say “not effective.” At the end of the day these are institutions for learning. Plenty of people make huge mistakes, including massive breaches of trust, then learn their lesson and become better people for it. Giving a 0 on an assignment is often sufficient if we’re being honest. In a lot of cases that dig such a deep hole that your grade will never recover. If you want punitive measures, and one that hits where it hurts in a way that is relevant to the act of cheating, it doesn’t get much more appropriate than that. Not to mention the educator is going to watch them like a hawk for the rest of the semester.

I’m not even going to bother elaborating on how absurd it is to compare murder and cheating on a homework assignment or whatever.