Dead Week has a set of formal rules for professors, but they are rarely enforced and often not well-understood (by faculty or students). Faculty and grad instructors seeking clarification generally get contradictory and confusing information.

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In general, after teaching several classes independently, the rules are (and they do vary some by discipline - notably, labs and some other STEM/applied sciences courses necessarily require somewhat different guidelines.):

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No tests, no quizzes allowed during Dead Week (unless they are 'normally assigned' - e.g. it is okay, for example, to do a reading quiz if you give a reading quiz every week)

• 'Pop quizzes' (surprise quizzes) are generally viewed as unacceptable under any circumstance
• Tests are tricky. If you have, say, 3 exams throughout the semester the rules technically make it acceptable to have such an exam during dead week. In such a case it is more justifiable if the exam is not comprehensive and does not vary from the length, breadth and total points value of the other exams (if it is worth more, is longer, is comprehensive while the second exam wasn't, etc. then you would be right to raise a stink about it being a final exam that has simply been re-branded. Also, in some ways having a final exam during finals may help justify a 'normal test' during dead week - but I'd argue that to be unethical - if a professor/instructor wants you to do three regular tests during the semester and a final exam hopefully they are decent enough to schedule the last test for the week prior to dead week. However, having a comprehensive final may help justify the 'normality' of a non-comprehensive test during Dead Week. Fun, eh?
  

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Absolutely no final exams during Dead Week

• this is one of the more problematic and confusing ones: it isn't clear if you can assign such exams during dead week while keeping them due later - and different departments have 'clarified' these rules differently, so your sociology professor and your literature professor may have two different understandings
• it is meant to stop professors from giving students their final exam during dead week in class or assign and have it due during the week. However, this often leads to final papers being made due during this dead week and keeps some professors from assigning take-home exams during dead week to give students more time to work on them
• Another issue this can cause is if the professor wants an in-class exam, but also wants it to be quick and easy - something that can be done in 20 minutes and isn't nearly as hard as most finals - and then they end up being assigned Saturday Morning for their final period; they can't instead give the final during dead week which would make it easier on students in that class who likely don't want to stick around on campus until the Saturday of finals week

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Homework assignments are only acceptable if they are normal, similar to quizzes. Moreover, they should be short (and generally should just be avoided). However, having one due during dead week is fine.

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In the past decade there have been few, if any, actual attempts to enforce the rules by the university... and this may be, in part, because professors may technically have a right to ignore the rules - professors are determinative of individual final grades without exception, unless there is a grade appeal which is something a student may win, even likely to win, but which is a huge hassle for all involved and does more damage to a student's reputation than the grade would have in many cases. Professors often feel forced to make all final projects due by dead week or may feel it necessary to shorten deadlines on final assignments so that they are due prior to dead week. Dead week essentially makes one week of material less important as material covered during it can't be graded outside of a final exam - dead week classes may feel more boring as a result while the previous week felt overly rushed with too much material. Professors may be wary about giving the final of, say, 3 or 4 tests during dead week and instead have their final test during finals week instead - even though it isn't a final exam in the same way a comprehensive, extra-long and more highly-valued test during finals week tyically is. This can mean students have to stay on campus longer or actually stress more.

There are workarounds that professors and instructors can, and regularly do, use as well. Give the final in class and refer to it as homework, like other homeworks they've assigned, but 'worth double'. Essentially, playing semantic games can make it easier to give a final during dead week - or to give extra assignments.

Online finals are becoming more common, and not just for online classes - many in-person classes are now having all their tests online (far less time consuming to grade for the professor, students get grades back immediately, virtually no chance of human error in grading, more flexibility for students). Professors can just make them available during Dead Week and give students longer to complete them. Some departments however are wary of even making a final available during dead week - though this goes against the purpose of dead week which is to reduce stress and allow students time to study and prepare according to their own schedules.

This isn't dissimilar from a take-home final to be turned in during finals week (note that a take-home final cannot be both assigned and made due within the span of Dead Week - technically, it shouldn't be due during dead week at all if it is a true final, but if your final is a research paper you've been working on for a month, or a final project, then I wouldn't complain - remember, your professor also needs time to grade finals and if your final is a research paper, then they have 50+ research papers to grade during finals week).

In such cases you should know you have the right and are entitled to have up until the time when your exam for that class would have been held based on the exam time assigned to it. This is an important student right to be aware of, but it also faces new problems:

• Every class used to be assigned a two-hour final exam time slot automatically. However, for a few years now professors and instructors are required to inform the university of whether or not they need such a time slot. Many just don't give a final, many have a final paper with pretty reasonable expectations for when it is due given how long you've had to work on it, some classes have final presentations which may be ongoing during the final two weeks of class (which is fine for dead week), and understandably they don't need to request times. However, especially with the rise of online classes and online assignments, this is more complex.
• Students may be given a 'take-home' multiple-choice final that is taken on blackboard and may be timed. These professors may not have a final exam time scheduled, so when they make the final due can be arbitrary - and if it is, say, the Monday or Tuesday of finals week it can be a problem. This is because any student with more than 2 exams on one day has the right to reschedule these exams as needed. If you have a take home due on Monday of finals week and have two scheduled finals as well, then you have the right to ask - really, to demand, but don't phrase it that way - that you be given an extra day for the take home. Professors get a list of students who have multiple exams on the same day - if they didn't schedule an exam time, then their class will not be used to determine who is and is not on that list so it is unlikely those professors who did schedule exams are going to be as willing to budge on offering you another time.
• Best advice is to figure out if this is an issue early and talk to the professors in advance - especially the one assigning the take-home. However, what if the take home multiple-choice exam is due Tuesday of finals, was made available Sunday and you had no exams on Monday - but have two other scheduled on Tuesday? In that case, you likely have no grounds to seek formal redress if a professor refuses to accommodate you by offering an extra day.