From my point of view, punishment is not too harsh.

It is essential to
warn cheating behaviors in school. Because of the development of the
internet nowaday, more and more students are cheat. If we do not punish
their cheating behaviours, its will happen frequently even in exams. In
addition, it would be not fair for some students who have studied studious
and have good scores but not as high as some students that cheat, or even
lower. “ If we do not punish cheating , then we reward students who cheat
and we put honest students at disadvantage ,’’says Anna Linsione, the
principal of Westridge Hight School. Otherwise, many honest students
admire that they were all under a lot of pressure because although they
have to spent a lot of time to study and work hard, they can not compete
against dishonest students for top grades. For these reasons, I believe we
should punish severely cheating students.