That would strike me as a childish response. Since the principal's proposed rule changes seem to be sensible, and since he went to great trouble to vet them with people "on the front line" (the student body, etc), I prefer to think he would not stoop to something so childish, but simply made an error in judgment.
It would be far better, imho, for him to announce that the school had realized there were flaws in the system, and here are the proposed fixes for future students. It would have meant admitting that they got snookered (if that is indeed what happened), but sometimes you just have to suck it up and admit like a man that someone else out-thought you.