Sleeping grade

Here's a story about a teacher who was banned from school property for refusing to change a student's grade. At first, it might seem like this is unfair, or that this teacher is being harshly punished. I wonder though? Here's a predicament where I honestly don't know which side is more right, because I think they're both right...well, one is right in principle and one is right on technicality. The story is this: A student fell asleep in class, and was marked down on an assignment assigned that day. "Of course," you say, right? Well, not so fast. The student did in fact complete the assignment on time and with a perfect score. The school district has a policy that teachers are not permitted to use grades as disciplinary tools or rewards for non-academic performance. This teacher, "Doc" as he is called, IS in violation of the policy by a strict interpretation of the rule.

My question is, should he have been banned? For that matter, why did it get that serious? I strongly suspect there is more going on here than is reported in this article. Even mean hard-nosed people usually don't go to extreme measures without some cause.

Here's the challenge....What should have happened? I mostly agree with the guy's policy, that if you sleep through class, you are penalized. But I've also been on the other end of that, where I've been in a position to excel in a class mentally and academically, where I was getting 100% on all the tests, but I'd stay up too late and couldn't make it through class all the way. And then there are the lectures that, no matter how interesting the subject, there's no way in creation anyone can stay awake...the ones where you'd learn more by reading a blank phone book.

So there are two camps here, the one that says a person should be objectively evaluated on their performance only, and the one that says people should be subjectively evaluated on their potential or intentions or attitude. So what should it be here? one? the other? some combination of both? If both, who decides what the balance should be? how do you enforce uniform standards for balance?