Someone once told me that it was hard being a Muslim at University.

In turn, I did what I always do when I don't quite understand what I'm being told, I laughed.

Despite being a Muslim myself, truth was, I had no idea what he meant.

How could it be hard? What's so different about University? Having been at a higher education establishment for almost six years now, I feel better qualified to be able to answer my own questions and his.

It is true that the persona of the average student is not what it was 10, or even 5 years ago.

We, as a combined body, are more ethically and morally aware, so that you are more likely to find us demonstrating than you are to find us snoozing in a lecture theatre.

But does that mean that we're more prone to other's ideologies?

The academic within me would think not, but the media around me suggests otherwise. So I did what I always do when I need some answers - I asked my good old friend Google.

All my research came back to statements made by Professor Glees of Brunel University who, following the 7/7 bombings, claimed that there was a culture of extremism and terrorism on Britain's campuses.

Why anyone took him seriously I have no idea.

He teaches at Brunel, need I say more?

For some reason, the Social Affairs Unit funded him to conduct a nine-month study on extremism on campuses.

The resulting report was bursting with statements that would make any self-respecting postgraduate student blush.

His 'evidence', as he likes to call it, appeared anecdotal at best, whilst there is much left to be desired in his statistics.

Recommendations made by Glees include limiting the number of ethnic minority students, a complete ban on all 'faith societies', as well as the placement of plain-clothes officers around university campuses.

Seems to me like there's only one extremist amongst us Professor Glees and you're looking right at him.

This is not to say that University campuses are not used by extremists from all walks of life, be they from the British National Party, animal rights activists or religious ideologists/extremists.

Evidence of the existence of such political parties has been well-documented with groups such as Al-Muhajiroun and Hizb ut-Tahrir banned from the National Union of Students, but why hasn't the BNP been banned?

This is clearly an extremist group that in my eyes has been promoting violence for decades.

I wonder whether this is yet another ploy by both the media and Government alike to vilify Muslims and Islam, or whether the recruitment of Muslim students by Islamic extremists is a real cause for concern?

In my opinion, a lack of knowledge is what breeds extremism and intolerance, whilst education provides us with the knowledge and understanding that will allow us to replace this intolerance with what Thomas Jefferson described as a 'decent respect for the opinion of mankind'.

So can you please credit us with the intelligence to know better?