When you've finished with the feeding frenzy...

Chaminda Jayanetti has had his fill of paranoia and cynicism when it comes to debating extremism on campus.

"Absolute bollocks. You are being conned."

I am?

"I have been watching BBC Breakfast , and Bill Turnbull told me: 'Authorities say there was no specific information about anything happening today.'"

Ah, the terror arrests. Airports in chaos. Go on... "So why pick today? What else has happened recently? Oh, did Israel launch a ground invasion last night? Oh yes, so it did. Is there the first mention of that on the news? No, all we are getting is a constant stream of: 'The terrorists are evil, they are out thereI'"

Huh? He's not telling me it's a conspiracy, is he?

He is. And "he" is not just anybody. He is Joe Rukin, treasurer of the National Union of Students, one of the most measured people I have met in the murky swamp of student politics, posting on an online message board last Thursday. If he is crying conspiracy, what about everyone else?

The alleged terror plot has taken on great potential significance for universities. Reports that one of those arrested is head of the London Metropolitan University Islamic Society have reignited speculation that terrorists are recruiting on campuses.

Many students are cynical about the arrests, given the Government's record on Iraq and the de Menezes and Forest Gate shootings. There is widespread fear of an impending clampdown on civil liberties. Any attempt to discuss campus extremism is likely to be resisted as fanning the flames of Islamophobia.

Into this void has stepped Anthony Glees, professor at Brunel University.

The misguided recommendations of last year's Glees report, which concluded that terrorists were recruiting on UK campuses, sparked justified criticism as well as unwarranted personal vilification. But recent events mean that Glees's arguments for tightening campus security and restricting academic freedom could soon become gospel in the credulous corridors of the Home Office. Reports indicate that universities will soon have access to intelligence from domestic and international security services. Like it or not, the campus security vice is already being tightened.

The overall response to the arrests has been typically polarised. People believe what they want to hear and disbelieve what they don't. One side demands a draconian clampdown; the other sticks its fingers in its ears and shouts "no" at the top of its voice. But what we need is a considered response.

Given the pathetically low conviction rate from anti-terror arrests, it is the Government's fault that so few trust the latest alert. But the Government could also benefit from this distrust. So far, none of the alleged terror plotters has been charged, let alone convicted. But if it is found that terrorists were recruiting on campus, the Government will not hesitate to act. And if those who defend campus freedoms have nothing to offer but conspiracy theories, the hardliners will go unchallenged.

I recently spoke to a Muslim graduate of the School of Oriental and African Studies. She talked openly about the campuses on which Hizb ut-Tahrir was active, how it operated and what it got up to. It was the sort of information for which our security services bug phones and for which the Mail on Sunday offers students such as me good money. Yet here it was, expressed freely and without fear.

Hizb ut-Tahrir are extremists, not terrorists. The two are different. But they are also destabilising, reactionary loudmouths. The student was delighted to hear that they have been marginalised at Soas - not by the police or press, but by students simply not wanting to associate with them.

Anyone who believes in the principle of innocent until proven guilty should regard the government case with scepticism. But even as we wait for proof that terrorists are operating on campus, as opposed to just happening to study there, we know full well that non-violent regressive extremists are. And while government policy gives fuel to such extremists, there is no reason why students and universities should not discuss how best to marginalise and expose them.

We must create an environment on campus where students can raise genuine concerns about extremist activity - be it from inflammatory loudmouths or discreet loiterers - without fear of kicking off a security feeding frenzy.

And we must discuss how to do this now if we are to have viable proposals to protect our freedoms ready for when the draconian blowback comes.

Scepticism is a virtue. Cynicism, while understandable, is not. And ignorance, be it through cynicism, fear or disillusionment will play straight into the hands of those who would turn our universities into academies of state paranoia.

Chaminda Jayanetti is news editor of London Student .