turnitin the gatekeeper

I heard a bizarre story which I'll just pass along with no comment. This actually comes from another universiy, but could have just as easily come from ours. A professor says he'll put all the exams through Turnitin and if any come out positive, they'll fail. A student writes the exam question on top of the exam; writes the exam and hands it in; the exam trips on Turnitin because the question is copied at the top of it. The teacher flunks the student. The student complains, saying, hey, I was just copying the question before I wrote the exam; that's different from copying on the exam. The teacher says, hey, you just flunked the exam, you didn't flunk the whole course. In other words, the teacher stood by the rule; gave her zero credit for the exam, and went on with life.

There's usually more to these stories than the blatant tyranny and stupidity that appear at first glance. But maybe not. As I said, no comment.