Teachers at a Melbourne school have been suspended after a Muslim student pointed out ‘inappropriate’ (aka ‘factual’) material in lecture notes about Islam, including a quote from a high profile anti-Islamization activist, Brigitte Gabriel.

SBS (h/t Adrian G) When Melbourne TAFE student Tayeba Quddus logged on to check her upcoming class materials, she was ‘shocked’ to discover a presentation suggesting as many as 180 – 300 million Muslims are “radicals who want to destroy and murder”. (According to Muslim scholars, approx. 10% of all Muslims are extremists) When Melbourne TAFE student Tayeba Quddus logged on to check her upcoming class materials, she was ‘shocked’ to discover a presentation suggesting as many as 180 – 300 million Muslims are “radicals who want to destroy and murder”. (According to Muslim scholars, approx. 10% of all Muslims are extremists)

The 26-year-old said she felt marginalixed after reading the slide, titled “Most Muslims are peaceful”, which included a link to a YouTube video of controversial American anti-Islam campaigner Brigitte Gabriel speaking at a panel in 2017 where she was “asked a question that related to the peaceful Muslim majority”.

“And her response could not have been any more perfect,” the slide said. “It is true — not all Muslims are bad. Most are not. But the fact is 180 million to 300 million people are radicals who want to destroy and murder. You can’t ignore those numbers.”

“I couldn’t really believe what I was reading and that it was actually published there for us to learn”, Ms Quddus told SBS. “For me, it felt like the teacher was using her platform to teach Islamophobic factual ideas in the class.”

The slideshow presentation was part of a subject on “diversity” for TAFE’s Certificate IV in Youth Work and Certificate IV in Alcohol and Other Drugs being taught at the Holmesglen Institute.

Ms Quddus said she demanded the content to be removed in an email to her teachers last week, who told her the content was designed to provoke in-class discussion and did not take it down.

Dissatisfied with the response, she then complained to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission and the Islamic Council of Victoria.

“I think the wider issue here is the normalization of portraying Muslims as extremists – it’s the fact that there isn’t a lot of sensitivity for Muslim students in class and screening whether content would or would not be offensive,” she said. (Who cares? Muslims find the truth about Islam to be offensive)

Ms Quddus said she was also concerned about another slide in the same presentation which cited a partial list of Islamist terrorist attacks on Wikipedia.

“She only listed terrorist attacks perpetrated by Muslims which gives more oxygen to the idea that terrorist attacks are only ever done by Muslims,” she said, adding that Wikipedia should not be used as a reliable academic source.

But there are countless well-documented non-Wikipedia sources that back-up the claim that the vast majority of terrorist attacks around the world are by Muslims.

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Holmesglen Institute said the “inappropriate” content had been uploaded to the student portal but had not yet been delivered in lectures.

“We have called the complainant to acknowledge their concerns and issued an unreserved apology for the offence caused,” it said in a statement. “The teachers involved are being suspended until the investigation concludes.”

The educational institute added it is now conducting a “more thorough analysis of the context of the lesson itself within the unit is being carried out to ensure all content is appropriate”.