Whoopi Goldberg fights back tears as The View host defends 'mad' student protesters

The View host Whoopi Goldberg appeared to fight back tears as she defended students protesting at colleges across the country and claimed it was 'one of the great rights as an American to stand up and say something's wrong.'

There have been more than 700 arrests by police breaking up the protests, which last week spread across the US to at least 76 universities and rising, with Columbia University warning protesting students on Monday to disperse or face suspension as their encampment rages on for a 14th day.

As Whoopi, 68, discussed the ongoing protests with her cohosts on Monday's episode of ABC show, the studio fell quiet as she bowed her head and composed herself before saying: 'Since I haven't said anything, I'm sorry, I do have to do this.

'It is one of the great rights as an American to stand up and say something's wrong. Regardless of what your color is, if you are a woman, man, it doesn't matter, and we must teach our people how to be on the lookout. Part of our problem is the media takes what is the best clickbait.'

Whoopi Goldberg appeared to fight back tears during Monday's The View as she defended students protesting at colleges across the US

Columbia University students gather to march and rally in support of a protest encampment on campus supporting Palestinians on April 29

Many students camped out on the campus of Columbia University last week

Demonstrators face off with NYPD officials outside the main entrance of Columbia University on April 24

She continued: 'So you see the same posters or you see the same people, but you don't see the folks who are doing peaceful stuff and saying, "Here's what we want to do."

'I would caution the media to be very careful about what they're doing and how they're handling this because what they seem to be doing is pushing a narrative that people are pushing against, which students are pushing against, which I'm thrilled to see because I like when students get mad and say, "We want a change made."'

It seems that the Sister Act star had initially promised The View's executive producer Brian Teta that she wouldn't make a speech. She then added: 'Unfortunately, I see that Brian is side-eyeing me, and he's starting to get annoyed because I said I wasn't going to say anything,' before she joked: 'So he knows me for the liar that I am.'

However, Whoopi wasn't the only one on the panel who felt passionate about the topic as Sunny Hostin argued: 'I think we need to shift the framing of these college protests back, in my view.

'I think college campuses have been the place for anti-war protests for as far as I can remember. I think recent protests haven't even reached the scale of the major student protest that we saw in the late 1960s against the Vietnam War, or even the 1980s against South Africa's practice of apartheid.

'We saw calls during apartheid to divest from South African companies, and that was very successful. Nelson Mandela said he believed that's what led in many respects to South Africa being freed from that system, and so I think these are anti-war protests, and I think it's very distressing that we are framing these as pro-Palestinian protests or pro-Israeli protests.' 

Mother-of-two Sunny continued: 'These are anti-war protests, and the students that I have spoken to at many of the Ivy League schools are telling me this is a humanitarian crisis.

'What we also don't talk enough about is the fact that 35,000, mainly women and children that are Palestinians, have been murdered.'

At one point, Whoopi bowed her head and appeared to take a moment to compose herself

Sunny Hostin argued that 'we need to shift the framing of these college protests'

Ana Navarro (left) and Alyssa Farah Griffin also joined in on the conversation with Sunny

She added: 'What we also don't talk about, I think enough, is that for some reason the discussion of against Israel's policies which the U.N. has called war crimes, which the International Criminal Court is investigating as war crimes, what we don't say is these are people, these are civilians, and we must protect them.'

Earlier on, Whoopi had said to the panel: 'Obviously, and let's be very clear about this, no one supports any anti-Semitic hate speech, and students fearing for their safety, but do they have the right to peacefully protest about ending violence?

'Isn't this part of being an American, and also standing up when you see something that's wrong?'

Former White House aide Alyssa Farah Griffin then decided to respond and have her say.

'Well, that is the fundamental question. There's a right to free speech and a right to assembly, but Jews also have a right to feel safe on college campuses,' the 34-year-old began.

'Here's what I will say, as a Lebanese American I'm disgusted at seeing Hezbollah flags, a terrorist organization, fly on American college campuses, and I understand that these young people are coming out protesting for peace, protesting for a ceasefire.

'But I also want to say, there was a ceasefire before October 7th. Israel has proposed two since then, Hamas has rejected them, and Hamas' own charter in Article 13 states that it rejects any peaceful solutions, any negotiated pieces.

Sara Haines shared her frustration at students' education being affected and urged universities to 'step up'

Columbia University President Minouche Shafik issued a statement saying many Jewish students have been forced out of the campus because of the 'intolerable' atmosphere created

Columbia University has asked demonstrators to sign a document agreeing to 'voluntarily leave by 2pm' Monday - or be evicted from the camp and suspended from the Ivy League

'And beyond that, we have seen this language go into something that is far more radical, anti-Semitic, saying that Jews do not have a place on campus.  

'I spoke to the brother of Alex Edelman, he had a yarmulke ripped off on campus, he had somebody grab his neck simply for existing as a Jew.

'People need to call this out, Jews are living in fear of white nationalists on one side and far-leftists, who are frankly siding with terrorists in some cases, on the other side.'

Sara Haines chimed in and shared her frustration at students' education being affected and urged universities to 'step up.'

'That's the part that bothers me is there are parents everywhere that just want their kids that want their kids to learn. We have graduations being canceled, we have in-session classes being canceled,' she said.

'The college should provide the forum, they should not put the finger on the scale. We should be encouraging young people to be uncomfortable with thoughts, critically think, protest all the things, but you also have to make sure it doesn't cross into lawlessness, chaos, and violence, and it is crossing over into that right now on a lot of these campuses.'