This is true. Had a buddy get caught cheating in a class and the teacher basically just said you're going to fail the class, but they didn't really want to go through the honor council part so they told him if he promised not to just drop and take another teacher the next semester, he could use academic forgiveness, take that teacher again, and they wouldn't report it. But I heard plenty of stories of other students not being nearly as lucky and getting sent to The Honor Council. If someone ever got sent there, you basically could guarantee they were getting suspended or outright expelled. Almost never saw anybody come out of one of those hearings with less than that.