In a time when dissent-trampling thought police reign supreme on most college campuses, we should praise the rare university official who insists on fairness and free expression. Witness Maud Mandel, president of Williams College in Williamstown, Mass. Last week, Mandel had the fortitude to reverse the student government’s malicious denial of recognition to a student group supportive of Israel.

To get recognition and permission to operate on equal status as all other student groups on campus at Williams, a student organization must meet a list of technical requirements. Once those conditions are met, recognition always has been routine — until late April, that is.

As reported by Brooklyn College professor K.C. Johnson in Tablet, a “daily online magazine of Jewish news, ideas, and culture,” the Williams College Council voted 13-8 not to recognize the Williams Initiative for Israel (WIFI), which aims to build support for Israel’s cause and “educate the College on issues concerning Israel and the Middle East.”

No student organization in the past decade had been denied recognition once it met the technical requirements. So you can guess what happened here. It only makes things better that a philosophically opposite group, a branch of Students for Justice in Palestine, already received recognition. The student government’s position was that the Initiative for Israel’s views don’t merit respect on campus. As one Initiative for Israel opponent suggested rather ineloquently, the College Council should “vote out what we think are ideas we think are worthy of being discarded.”

The college paper, the Record, published a piece by 11 Initiative for Israel critics in favor of the student government’s action. “The pro-Israel lobby in the United States is both extremely well-funded and politically influential,” wrote these little totalitarians. “Thus, both practically and discursively, the state of Israel does not need a student group defending its ‘right to exist’ on this campus any more than we need to ‘defend’ the rights of wealthy, straight white men.”

At least they didn’t go as far as some of those who argued at the student government meeting that Israel is subjecting Palestinians to “genocide” worse than the Holocaust — which, after all, according to these historical illiterates, was merely an effort to segregate Jews into their own ghettoes “for short periods of time.”

Fortunately, President Mandel stepped in. Maybe it helps that before entering administration she long had been a professor of history and Judaic Studies and had written numerous papers on “anti-Jewish violence.” Whether she was standing for free expression and association in general, or was just emboldened to do the right thing because she so particularly understands the issues involved, Mandel insisted that the Williams Initiative for Israel be recognized equally with other student groups.

“The transcript of the debate and vote indicate that the decision was made on political grounds,” she wrote, in explanation. “In doing so, Council departed from its own process for reviewing student groups, which at no point identifies a proposed group’s politics as a criterion for review.” Therefore, she explained, the college will guarantee to the Initiative for Israel “exactly equal resources” as those for which any other student organization would qualify.

There was a time when such a stance would be expected from the president of any university, especially a prestigious one such as Williams College. Alas, such common sense now counts as tremendous courage. All across the country, university administrators are groveling before leftists who demand that opposing speech be squelched.

In that light, Mandel’s action is notably praiseworthy. As she explained, the Williams Initiative for Israel’s case is a “basic matter of fairness and people’s right to express diverse views. Differences over such views are legitimate grounds for debate, but not for exercising the power to approve or reject a student group.”

Bingo.

[Also read: Restoring free speech and academic freedom on campus]