New York - Saba:
Columbia University has temporarily suspended more than 65 students due to their participation in pro-Palestinian protests.
According to a university official, the students have been temporarily suspended and will be prohibited from taking their final exams or entering campus except to reach their residences.
The official added that Columbia University also barred 33 other people from entering campus, including students from other universities and alumni who participated in the protest.
"When rules are violated and when our academic community is deliberately disrupted, it is a considered choice, one with real consequences," the university official said.
Dozens of students were arrested after seizing part of the university's main library on Wednesday in one of the largest pro-Palestinian protests on campus since last year's wave of protests against the Israeli war on Gaza.
New York Police Department officers were called to campus to quell the protest at the request of university officials.
The protest came amid negotiations between Columbia University's Board of Regents and the Trump administration, which announced last March that it would punish the university for past pro-Palestinian protests by canceling hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants.
Student activists representing the protesters have not yet responded to the news of the students' suspensions. On Wednesday, protest organizers reiterated their longstanding demands that the university "stop investing any of its $14.8 billion in grant money in arms companies and other businesses that support the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territories."
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