HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Harvey Silverglate: Babson College Dropped Ball in Post-Election Incident.

The shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later mentality that has gripped our college campuses, currently basking — or wallowing — in a so-called diversity and inclusion phase, has visited Babson College, where members of the administration and faculty worked themselves into a lather over an incident of racial harassment that, it turns out, the most elementary investigation would have demonstrated never occurred.

This puts Babson, President Kerry Healey, and a number of administrators and faculty members into the uncomfortable position of having failed to adhere to an academic obligation — first determine the facts, then draw conclusions, and only then open your mouth. . . .

Healey was joined by Dean of Students Lawrence Ward, and some 200 members of Babson’s faculty — none of whom apparently had bothered to look for evidence before condemning Rand-Ricciardi and Tomasso and effectively labeling them racists and homophobes. It was a classic example of the justice meted out by the infamous character Queen of Hearts in “Alice in Wonderland,” who pronounced sentences — “off with their heads” — before the inconvenience of a trial.

Remember, higher education is supposed to be valuable because it teaches critical thinking.

Related: Legal advocacy group says Babson’s actions a ‘serious concern.’

A national legal advocacy group that’s successfully sued colleges for violating students’ free speech and due process rights is putting Babson College on notice that it’s monitoring the discipline of two students who waved a Donald Trump flag on the Wellesley College campus the day after the presidential election.

The Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is delivering a letter to Babson today, said Ari Cohn, FIRE’s senior program officer for legal and public advocacy. He said the Babson case is “of serious concern” to FIRE.

“Because these students are going to face harassment and disorderly conduct charges simply for pre-existing support of a candidate, without anything more than that, the college’s promises of freedom of expression are essentially meaningless,” Cohn said.

Annual cost of attending Babson College: $58,692.

Flashback: ‘Tolerant’ educators exile Trump voters from campus.