I think there is at least also the question of how often student handbooks need to be provided/reviewed. "The fall of last year" is quite a bit ago, I would have expected that the rules are reviewed every year. Especially with new technological advances, I can understand some confusion / misremembering of the rules, and I think surprising rules should probably be re-addressed at least yearly.
The rule of turning in your original work is pretty central, though, and not something an honors scholar should need to be constantly reminde of. What the parents are doing reminds me of all of the “on the internet” parents in the 90s where people were basically hoping to snow a judge with a claim that using new technology was inherently transformative and not covered by precedent.
This incident took place in December of last year, so 2-3 months after the student handbook would have been distributed and the in classroom review of the policy would have taken place. 2-3 months doesn't seem too long to expect a student to remember a policy.
