I would argue that the university is the customer of the professor and the student is a customer of the university’s reputation. In this case the university’s reputation is now diminished so the students have harmed themselves.
If anything has suffered a reputation hit from this story it’s organic chemistry professors in general who are broadly being portrayed in threads like these as sadists who care more about failing out future doctors than teaching them practical know-how who slid into standard medical education through an accident of history despite ochem perhaps being more appropriate as an elective topic.
I have no patience for professors on an ego trip. If a majority of students consistently fail your class, then you are failing as an educator. Besides teaching, it also includes designing an appropriate lesson plan for the level of their students.
There are very few fields where we place the responsibility on customers to suck it up if they regularly receive a bad product or service.
I would argue that attempts to obfuscate that are in fact attempts to maintain the university’s power over their students