STORY: Following weeks of student protests that culminated in police storming campus and arresting activists...
Columbia University in New York City announced on Monday it had canceled its university-wide commencement ceremony.
The cancelation is the latest casualty in a nation-wide crisis that has gripped college campuses.
Students outraged by what they see as a brutal Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip set up encampments on university grounds.
Some universities, including Columbia, called in riot police wielding batons and flash-bang grenades to disperse and arrest hundreds of protesters, citing a paramount need for campus safety.
Civil rights groups have decried such tactics as unnecessarily violent infringements on free speech.
Last week, New York City police cleared a Columbia campus building that had been barricaded by pro-Palestinian protesters, arresting more than 100 people and dismantling an encampment.
Columbia said on Monday it had consulted with student leaders in deciding how to handle graduation, which had been set to take place on its upper Manhattan campus, where most of the protests have taken place.
The majority of the ceremonies will now take place at the main athletic complex about five miles away.
The turmoil on campuses has prompted several colleges and universities across the country to relocate, modify, or cancel commencement ceremonies altogether.
In a statement on Monday announcing the cancellation, Columbia called the the past few weeks "incredibly difficult for our community."
It said that rather than a single university-wide ceremony, graduating students would be recognized at smaller, school-based events.
