Muslim campaign at RMIT gaining support

July, 2008

Since March this year Muslim students and staff at Melbourne's RMIT University have been waging a determined campaign for the return of their Prayer Room, which has been recast as a "multi-faith" centre unsuitable for practising Islam and not even open at key Prayer times.

The centre of the campaign is the Islamic Society's lunchtime Friday Prayers, which have taken the form of weekly mass protests consistently involving hundreds of people, even through the mid-year break. This is now one of the most sustained and steadfast campaigns on any campus in recent memory. And far from losing momentum, the campaign is ramping up as we enter second semester.

Welcome to nation of university ghettos

July 23, 2008

A WIDENING gulf between local and foreign university students is creating segregated classes, cultural cliques and religious ghettos, raising fears of a backlash on campuses.

International education is a $12.5 billion industry, and foreign students' fees account for an average 15 per cent of universities' overall funding, but a higher education experts warns of "informal but real segregation".