Farhad Manjoo wrote an article for Slate "There Is No Harvard Cheating Scandal". It's basically a defense of the students, arguing that they weren't cheating, but "collaborating". Since collaboration is the name of the game in the business/professional world, shouldn't they be allowed to collaborate in college? It might sound reasonable, but...
The purpose of collaboration is NOT to make things easier for the individual; the purpose is to allow multiple committed people to produce something greater than what any individual of the group could create. A simple example can be seen in team sports: Michael Jordan, even though he was the greatest basketball player of an entire generation, could not play and win by himself. He needed other (very talented) players, like Rodman, Pippen, and Grant, to create an amazing basketball legacy. Having worked as part of a team does not diminish his individual contributions but allows those contributions to come to fruition.
Speaking about the specifics of the class, Manjoo stated that the exam questions were "tricky". I would argue that they weren't: the chief one was an open-ended question about the influence of lobbying on the function of Congress. When I took a college course on American government (not even specific to Congress) at a university that was most definitely not Harvard (and quite a long time ago), this topic was covered, and covered well.
Manjoo makes other excuses for the students. He suggests that some of the faculty (probably grad students, and I can assure you that Harvard does not admit idiots into its grad programs, nor does it hire unexceptional faculty) were not as good as others. This is certain to be the case, but doesn't excuse cheating. The students were not prevented from looking at notes their peers made, or reading additional material (the phrase lobbying congress pulls up approximately 14.7 million hits on Google, starting with a Wikipedia article), or checking out YouTube (approximately 6.6 million hits) if they are too lazy to read.
All of this is secondary, though. If there was possible wiggle room, we could perhaps have a real (although pointless) debate about whether or not the students exceeded the allowed activities. However, the exam clearly states (and Manjoo quotes): "students may not discuss the exam with others." Manjoo questions the wisdom of this, but experienced teachers will always explain that they construct assignments and exams around the resources they do and do not allow. Manjoo is, in essence, arguing that there should be no rules about academic integrity.
Am I pushing Manjoo's argument too far? I don't think so. There is always an argument in favor of some form of abuse: crib sheets mean you don't have to memorize and can focus on concepts, working with others is collaboration, and having someone else write your papers is just using professional expertise. The rules may seem arbitrary, but again, faculty tune their tests to whatever environment they want for the exam.
I'll cap off with a couple of anecdotes. First, when I was an undergrad, I missed two weeks of classes due to illness (I was bedridden until a trip to the hospital) and missed an exam; the prof let me take a custom makeup exam that was take-home, but without notes and with a specific time constraint. I honored those requirements. As a PhD candidate, I had to take a comprehensive examination (during which anything could be asked); I was expected to be able to cite relevant research literature from memory. Were those requirements fair? Absolutely. Had I cheated on my comprehensive, I would have been expelled. I knew the rules, I knew what was at stake, and I complied. All that the Harvard students were being asked to do was comply with one simple rule, and they chose not to follow it. It's time to pay the piper.
