I havent read all the above, but it would seem to me that
if its ok to not being totally nitpicky about the ids and let the student have the stuff while letting them know it is the exception then why not do that.
Im more irritated by the power trip over not releasing something to a student because the staf dont like him.

weve all been fucked around by bureaucracy one way or another
(when I moved from one province to bc as a teenager I still had a learners drivers licence - which in manitoba was listed as on probation. the bc motor veh. dude said I had to do a whole road test as well as a written test - because I did something obviously bad
to be on probation - although all manitoba drivers are the 1st year.)

he wouldnt budge or call manitoba to check. I just went to another branch and had it done, no problem, the guy was just a jerk
of course he wasnt like that with the cute girl that was in the line ahead of me.