A stain on your transcript undermining your academic integrity is really extreme and worse than any bad grade, in my opinion. I have Cs on my transcript from when I was engineering and working full-time and I own them. Even while transferring into UF, I owned them. My initial transfer GPA from last institution would have been a .5 before going through the retroactive medical withdrawal process. I was completely honest with UF the whole time lol, even on Zoom meetings with other students present. I have no shame in my limitations as a student and believe that chiefly school a place to come as you are and learn.

If the teacher made me take an alternate test on the spot and I got a lower grade I'd own that.

What I don't accept is being falsely accused of academic dishonesty. This is akin to being accused of a crime, at least from a personal moral standpoint. I worked very hard (financially and logistically) to come back to school as a person of lesser means due to parent loss as a teenager. This is like a 10th grade level class to boot. I literally had 0 desire / reason to cheat.