Babson College Donald Trump Controversy: Campus Revokes Ban On Students Accused Of Shouting At Wellesley College

Babson College in Massachusetts was threatened with a defamation lawsuit Sunday after two students were accused of shouting racial and homophobic slurs on a drive through neighboring Wellesley College on Nov. 9.

Babson originally banned students Edward Tomasso and Parker Rand-Ricciard, who are both Donald Trump supporters, from its campus 16 miles west of Boston for shouting obscenities on a post-election “victory lap” through the campus of Wellesley College, where Hillary Clinton went to school.

The initial report submitted to Babson administrators accused Tomasso and Rand-Ricciard of yelling racial slurs and spitting at Wellesley students while driving a Chevy Silverado pickup truck and yelling “Make America Great Again!” the Boston Herald reported Monday.

Babson received roughly 90 reports detailing the two students’ racially motivated actions on Nov. 9, but only six of them came from actually witnesses, with the rest coming from Facebook posts from non-witnesses. The initial report said Tomasso and Rand-Ricciard “made many students feel very unsafe and terrorized.”

The students were scheduled to attend a campus disciplinary hearing Friday on harassment and disorderly conduct charges. Babson President Kerry Healey defended the school's actions.

“Our protocols are designed to ensure a fair process for all parties involved and to deliver an appropriate resolution based on evidence, not conjecture,” Healey said in a statement.

But because the Babson College investigation failed to find hard evidence linking the boys to any specific allegations, Rand-Ricciardi's lawyer, Jeffrey Robbins, demanded a public apology from school administrators and asked for the harassment and disorderly conduct charges to be dropped against both boys, the Boston Globe reported Monday. He threatened Babson College with a defamation lawsuit unless school administrators retract their previous statements about the students' alleged actions.

“Contrary to published news reports and comments made on Facebook, no racial slurs, no homophobic slurs nor any other offensive symbols or flags were reported by anyone.” Robbins wrote in a letter to Babson College's lawyer Sunday.