/Institutions/Coker-University/json/2025-2026/Student-Handbook-local.json

/Institutions/Coker-University/json/2025-2026/Student-Handbook.json

G Refusal to Submit to Questioning and Inferences

Any party or witness may choose not to offer evidence and/or answer questions at the hearing, either because they do not attend the hearing, or because they attend but refuse to participate in some or all questioning. The Decision-maker can only rely on the available Relevant Evidence in making a Final Determination. The Decision-maker may not draw any inference solely from a party’s or witness’s absence from the hearing or refusal to answer any or all questions. Typically, after brief opening statements, the order of questioning will be questions from the Decision-maker, questions from the party’s own Advisor, then questions from the other Parties’ Advisors. The same order will be used for questioning of witnesses, who do not typically make opening statements. The Parties then make brief closing statements, and then the hearing transitions into closed session for deliberation.

 

An Advisor may not be called as a witness at a hearing to testify to what their advisee has told them during their role as an Advisor unless the party being advised consents to that information being shared.