But much of that narrative is now being called into question. An internal Babson investigation of the incident by campus police and administrators found no evidence the men hurled slurs, spat, or stopped at the house for any reason other than that it sits on a cul-de-sac where they could turn around. A lawyer for one of the two Babson students says the conclusions suggest that college administrators, in the haze of Trump’s victory, may have jumped too quickly to condemn the students.

Students wrote that the men spat at Wellesley students, yelled racial and homophobic slurs, and purposefully stopped their truck in front of Harambee House, a gathering place for black students at the private women’s college.

When two Babson College students drove their pickup in a victory lap around Wellesley College the day after Donald Trump got elected, they were admonished by Babson administrators, denounced by Wellesley students, and hung out to dry on social media.

What is known for certain about the afternoon of Nov. 9 is that Babson students Parker Rand-Ricciardi and Edward Tomasso circled around Wellesley in their Chevy Silverado with a Trump flag and yelled “Make America Great Again.”


Wellesley’s campus police told them to leave.

But the internal Babson report, cited in a letter sent Friday to Babson by Jeffrey S. Robbins, who represents Rand-Ricciardi, found no evidence that the men did anything more than obnoxiously celebrate their candidate’s victory.

On Sunday, it notified the two by letter that they would be allowed to return to campus, according to a copy of the letter provided to the Globe.

The men are still subject to an Honor Board hearing Friday, but it is unclear what kind of on-campus disciplinary charges they might face. The students have not been charged criminally.

Babson would not provide details about its inquiry.


In a statement Monday, a college spokesman said that in every student conduct case it completes a “thorough and fair” investigation.

“We neither rush to judgment, nor shrink from our responsibility to conduct a full investigation due to pressure from internal or external sources,” said the spokesman, Michael Chmura.

But rush to judgment is exactly what the school did, said Robbins, the attorney for Rand-Ricciardi.

“Four weeks after Babson officials began a campaign of smearing these two students, it has released a report admitting that it has no evidence to support its statements,” Robbins wrote Sunday in a four-page letter to the school.

Robbins cited a large section of the conclusion of the Babson investigation verbatim in his letter.

The letter, first reported by the Boston Herald, asks that the school withdraw disciplinary charges against Rand-Ricciardi, retract false statements about him, and publicly apologize.

In the days after the incident, Babson president Kerry Healey apologized to Wellesley and wrote on the school’s website that “[the two students’] actions, as reported to me and other college officials, were highly offensive, incredibly insensitive and simply not acceptable.”

A large number of professors signed a letter saying that “the racist rhetoric, intimidation based on identity, and other demeaning ways in which some students are reportedly treating each other must end immediately.”

The national leadership of Sigma Phi Epsilon, the fraternity to which both men belong, ejected them from the group, describing their actions as “abhorrent to our members, alumni, and staff.’’


Meanwhile, not everyone is convinced that the Babson investigation was thorough. Some students at Wellesley said Monday they expected as much.

“We are saddened but not surprised. Once again the combination of white, male, and class privilege has manufactured false innocence,” said Jalena Keane-Lee, a senior at Wellesley.

Lura Krantz can be reached at laura.krantz@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @laurakrantz.