Officials at a Miami hospital are wrong not to allow three medical students to participate in a program there because of a weekend run-in with national law enforcement.

On Friday, three Muslim medical students on their way to a medical training program were detained in Florida after a woman in a Georgia restaurant told police she overheard them making comments about how Americans mourned Sept. 11 and will mourn again Sept. 13 after they go to Miami to “bring it down.”

The students were stopped by police after driving through an Interstate 75 tollbooth without paying. They were held for 17 hours while their cars were searched for explosives.

The three men were released and not charged with any crimes after police found nothing, but Miami’s Larkin Community Hospital, the student’s destination, is not allowing the men to visit after receiving hundreds of e-mails concerning Friday’s events.

Dr. Jack Michel, Larkin hospital president, told The Associated Press the hospital’s objective of taking care of patients could not be done “with all this media coverage.”

Administrators at Chicago’s Ross University, where the three men are enrolled, agreed to transfer them to another program.

While it is unfortunate the men had to endure the events of Friday, it is understandable in light of the nation’s security alert. But their ordeal should have ended when they were released.

In America, a person is innocent until proven guilty. Although the students might be guilty of running a tollbooth, they are not terrorists -and police have proven that. Law enforcement officers clarified all day Friday the men were not being considered suspects.

Miami’s Larkin hospital is treating the men as if they are guilty of a crime when they were only caught in the middle of a bad situation. The hospital officials’ reactions are discriminatory and wrong.