This is the "go to" excuse for academics who are as lazy as all get out and refuse to make more than the bare minimum of effort in their thinking and preparatio

This is the "go to" excuse for academics who are as lazy as all get out and refuse to make more than the bare minimum of effort in their thinking and preparation of teaching. "The students are too stupid and or lazy and we're not allowed to just fail them even though we have taught them next to nothing." Note that the replication crisis involves researchers, most of whom did very, very well academically having worked hard and been clever, before taking that success on to becoming academics. That's kind of how it works. So no "We can't fail people" is a non-starter here. It's totally bogus and needs to be treated with withering contempt along with any academic pushing such errant nonsense.