Sunny Hostin Praises Students' Campus Protests: Gen Z 'Gonna Save The World'
"The View" co-host Sunny Hostin has expressed support for the students on college campuses who have been protesting the war in Gaza.
While speaking to a TMZ reporter on Thursday, the TV personality weighed in on the ongoing pro-Palestinian demonstrations on university campuses that began at Columbia University on April 17 and has since spread to other universities in the nation and across the globe.
While Hostin did not say whether or not she agrees with the students' cause, she praised Gen Zs, saying that they are well-informed about current events and that she believes they are bringing positive change to the world.
"I think Gen Z is very, very engaged. I think that they're gonna save the world," she told the outlet.
Hostin added that she thinks the students should be described as anti-war rather than pro-Palestine and pointed out that the country has a long history of student protests against war.
"I think students are doing what they've always done. They're anti-war," she told TMZ.
Asked if she agrees with the protests, Hostin responded, "I agree with the freedom of speech, and I agree that our young people should be peacefully assembling. I think [there] should be a free exchange of ideas."
Hostin made similar comments on "The View" earlier this week while she and her co-hosts were discussing the ongoing campus protests.
In the episode, Hostin said that the demonstrations should be re-branded as "anti-war protests" and suggested that the claims that protesters were engaging in antisemitism allegedly came from the "far-right."
"It has never been in my life or my career that criticizing policies of government is equated with antisemitism. And that, I think, is a far-right, it comes from the far-right. It comes from the authoritarian leanings, where they don't want students on these campuses to voice their opinions because they want to change the narrative going forward," she claimed.
Hostin added, "I think we have to be very, very careful about that."
Her "The View" co-host Whoopi Goldberg also spoke in favor of the protesters, saying she was "thrilled" to see "students get mad and say, 'We want a change made.'"
More than 2,100 people have been arrested by police during the protests at college campuses in recent weeks, the Associated Press reported.
These included the around 300 protesters who were detained at Columbia University and City College of New York, according to CNN.
The protests called for the divestment from companies that support Israel and the war in Gaza.
