When I was 16, I took English 101 at a local college (joint enrollment, wanted to get it out of the way for my college undergraduate degree).
While there, I was, to my surprise, the top of my class. My grade average was 102 (the professor gave a maximum of 105 on each paper) and I'd had two papers read in class as exemplary.
Unfortunately, my professor was also staunchly politically-polarized, and would frequently spark political debates in class and use absurd examples for things that did not need to be politicized ("when citing a credible source, such as CBS, use this format. Non-credible sources, such as Fox News, or White House press releases [George W Bush was sitting president at the time] will not be accepted."). In one such discussion, the professor took a very difficult-to-support stance (I do not recall the substance now; this was in 2006) with which I and most of the class disagreed. However, as often happens in classroom settings, I wound up as unofficial "spokesman" for the general class consensus. The next assignment was the final paper, worth ~25% of my grade. I was given an F due to plagarism. When asked for proof, the professor highlighted a few sentence fragments here and there as "copied directly" (without stating the source from which these fragments were allegedly copied) and full paragraphs as "too far above [my] ability to be [my] original work." Her reasoning was that, on the whole, my paper "sounded more like a seasoned journalist than a mere college pre-freshman," so it was obviously plagarized despite any substantial lack of proof.
Because there was no system of appeals, the F stood, and my overall grade for the class dropped to a B. Simply because the professor disliked my political stance.
I agree completely, cheating is different than unexpected results. Additionally there is little recourse if an instructor has it in for you.
When I was 14, I had an "International trade" simulation in which each student was a "country" trying to make hamburgers. Each country was given a large amount of 2-3 ingredients, but 6 were necessary to make a burger (lettuce, cheese, patty, bread, tomato, mayo). So we had to trade and we'd be graded on how many burgers we could complete. The teacher was left wing and was trying to teach a "fixed wealth" version of trade. Some countries were specifically given less resources. Sparking cries of "unfair!". I was given less than average, and wasn't content to lose. So I immediately traded everything I had 2:1 to buy up all the patties; cornering the closed market trivially. Once I could roadblock a majority of the market, I asked for a 1:10 rate in return. I got by far the most complete hamburgers, but received an F for the exercise.
The teacher had hoped that we'd learn that wealth is pre-determined and trade more favorably with countries that had less. I wasn't participating in the "spirit" of the exercise. Thankfully she stopped short of calling it cheating.
I turned in a proposal (what ultimately was my thesis proposal). I had created my own model and it was described as such in the text. I got accused of plagiarizing my own model because I didn't cite a source. The comment was 'it is as if you are claiming to have invented it yourself.' approximately. The next line of feedback was something to the tune of 'This is what some might consider plagiarism in a university setting.' I got 1 point above passing for the paper.
I went to the professor and told her she clearly didn't even read my proposal because it anyone who actually read it would have read that it WAS my own model. Being accused of plagiarism and not reporting it to anyone was a fun ordeal. There was no consequences because it wasn't reported but I have my dignity and fuck you for accusing me of plagiarism. I went to the head of the program who said he basically didn't care, the professor told him everything was fine. So I went to the dean of the school, who said the head of my program told him everything was fine. But nobody would actually read or listen to any feedback. Ruined my grade for that course and really made me dislike the university and their ridiculous resistance to any sort of feedback.
When I was 16, I took English 101 at a local college (joint enrollment, wanted to get it out of the way for my college undergraduate degree).
While there, I was, to my surprise, the top of my class. My grade average was 102 (the professor gave a maximum of 105 on each paper) and I'd had two papers read in class as exemplary.
Unfortunately, my professor was also staunchly politically-polarized, and would frequently spark political debates in class and use absurd examples for things that did not need to be politicized ("when citing a credible source, such as CBS, use this format. Non-credible sources, such as Fox News, or White House press releases [George W Bush was sitting president at the time] will not be accepted."). In one such discussion, the professor took a very difficult-to-support stance (I do not recall the substance now; this was in 2006) with which I and most of the class disagreed. However, as often happens in classroom settings, I wound up as unofficial "spokesman" for the general class consensus. The next assignment was the final paper, worth ~25% of my grade. I was given an F due to plagarism. When asked for proof, the professor highlighted a few sentence fragments here and there as "copied directly" (without stating the source from which these fragments were allegedly copied) and full paragraphs as "too far above [my] ability to be [my] original work." Her reasoning was that, on the whole, my paper "sounded more like a seasoned journalist than a mere college pre-freshman," so it was obviously plagarized despite any substantial lack of proof.
Because there was no system of appeals, the F stood, and my overall grade for the class dropped to a B. Simply because the professor disliked my political stance.