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In my opinion, no, you are not wrong. Furthermore, the arguments that since you knew about the policy to begin with you don't have a leg to stand on, and that since the policy applies equally to all students it cannot be claimed to be unfair, are simply invalid and are missing a key point (which I'll address at the end) about where the unfairness comes from. Let's examine these two superficially compelling arguments more closely.

In my opinion, no, you are not wrong. Furthermore, the arguments that "since you knew about the policy to begin with you don't have a leg to stand on", and that "since the policy applies equally to all students it cannot be claimed to be unfair", are simply invalid and miss a key point (which I'll address at the end) about where the unfairness comes from. Let's examine these two superficially compelling arguments more closely.

The bottom line is that you have missed three of the course lectures. When I was a student there were many courses in which I missed such a number of lectures, and I did just great and am now a successful academic (and am probably considered an expert on some of the subjects those courses I missed lectures in were about...). Many of my students today are making equally reasonable and good decisions about when they want to come to class and when not to. They are grown-ups, and are using their time at university to acquire not just concrete knowledge but also to learn productivity and work skills, which include developing the judgment and self-knowledge to be able to make those sorts of decisions. Occasionally they make mistakes and learn from them. This is precisely as it should be. On my part, I give them exams and other assignments to learn whether they learned the material. Again, this is precisely as it should be. Nowhere in the process does it make sense for me to abuse my grading authority by requiring them to learn in a specific way, whether it be to do their homework between 8:17 p.m. and 9:44 p.m. every night (which I'm sure everyone reading this would agree would be outrageous and unreasonable) or to sit on a chair in a specific room in specific hours of specific weekdays.

The bottom line is that you have missed three of the course lectures. I don't know why you missed them, but one would be hard-pressed to convincingly argue that that says anything negative about you whatsoever. When I was a student there were many courses in which I missed such a number of lectures, and I did just great and am now a successful academic (and am probably considered an expert on some of the subjects those courses I missed lectures in were about...). Many of my students today are making equally reasonable and good decisions about when they want to come to class and when not to. They are grown-ups, and are using their time at university to acquire not just concrete knowledge but also to learn productivity and work skills, which include developing the judgment and self-knowledge to be able to make those sorts of decisions. Occasionally they make mistakes and learn from them. This is precisely as it should be. On my part, I give them exams and other assignments to learn whether they learned the material. Again, this is precisely as it should be. Nowhere in the process does it make sense for me to abuse my grading authority by requiring them to learn in a specific way, whether it be to do their homework between 8:17 p.m. and 9:44 p.m. every night (which I'm sure everyone reading this would agree would be outrageous and unreasonable) or to sit on a chair in a specific room in specific hours of specific weekdays.

In my opinion, no, you are not wrong, and the arguments that since you knew about the policy to begin with you don't have a leg to stand on, and that since the policy applies equally to all students it cannot be claimed to be unfair, are simply invalid and are missing a key point (which I'll address at the end) about where the unfairness comes from. Let's examine these two superficially compelling arguments more closely.

We can further illustrate the falseness of the "applies equally" argument by taking the same argument to an absurd extreme. What if the grading policy said that 15% of the grade would be given for the ability to recite the first 10000 digits of pi? (Let's assume that memorizing those digits was not one of the goals of the class, which seems like a fair assumption.) And let's assume that all the students except the OP managed to perform this feat and got the 15%, and he alone failed. Well, the policy was the same for everyone, so it is "maybe unreasonable" but "certainly not unfair" - right? Clearly that's nonsense, because the point is that (as I explained above) such a policy is grading based on completely irrelevant information, and hence discriminates against the OP compared to all other students who are evaluated on their knowledge of the material covered by the course.

In my opinion, no, you are not wrong. Furthermore, the arguments that since you knew about the policy to begin with you don't have a leg to stand on, and that since the policy applies equally to all students it cannot be claimed to be unfair, are simply invalid and are missing a key point (which I'll address at the end) about where the unfairness comes from. Let's examine these two superficially compelling arguments more closely.

We can further illustrate the falseness of the "applies equally" argument by taking the same argument to an absurd extreme. What if the grading policy said that 15% of the grade would be given for the ability to recite the first 10000 digits of pi? (Let's assume that memorizing those digits was not one of the goals of the class, which seems like a fair assumption.) And let's assume that all the students except the OP managed to perform this feat and got the 15%, and he alone failed. Well, the policy was the same for everyone, so it is "maybe unreasonable" but "certainly not unfair" - right? Clearly that's nonsense, because the point is that (as I explained above) such a policy is grading based on completely irrelevant information, and hence discriminates against the OP compared to all other students everywhere who are evaluated on their knowledge of the same material as covered by the course.