I know a lot of professors who do that, and now that I've been burned by somebody trying to take advantage of my generosity maybe it'll happen to me as well. But for now, I can't bring myself to do it. The first class I taught at this school, I had a student from Pakistan who found on the day of the final exam that several of his family members had been killed in the 2014 Peshawar school massacre. Being able to say "maybe you don't need to answer questions about the difference between Secularization and Rational Choice Theory today" felt like exercising my responsibility, not abandoning it.

But I get it either way. No knock on hardass professors at all.