“We have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country,” said Mr. Vance, whose mother-in-law is a college provost at the University of California San Diego. “The universities do not pursue knowledge and truth,” he added. “They pursue deceit and lies.”
That world has, in turn, started to reject Mr. Vance. Ahead of the September 2021 wedding of Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld — a daughter of Ms. Chua — multiple guests requested not to be seated next to the Vances, according to two people who attended the wedding. (The couple did not attend, in the end, because their children had the flu and Ms. Vance was soon to deliver their third child, according to two people close to the Vance family.)
Ms. Vance returned to Munger, Tolles & Olson in 2019. Her work has included helping to defend the University of California against claims that it violated Title IX, and the Walt Disney Company, against claims of copyright infringement.
According to one former and one current lawyer at the firm, some employees at Munger, Tolles & Olson are confused and disappointed by Ms. Vance’s support of her husband’s Trumpian turn, and his rhetoric on gender and immigration.
A New Life in Ohio
In 2018 the couple bought a 5,000 square-foot Victorian Gothic house on several acres in an upscale, liberal-leaning neighborhood on the east side of Cincinnati. The house, which cost $1.4 million, dates back to 1858 and is considered an important home by local historians. It has a sweeping staircase, verdant grounds for their dogs, Pippin and Casper, and separate structures including a two-story building by a swimming pool.
Ms. Vance — who works remotely for her firm’s San Francisco and D.C. offices — is not widely known among the city’s establishment, though in 2020 she joined the board of directors of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. (Dianne Rosenberg, the board chair and a civic leader and patron of the arts in Cincinnati, declined to comment about Ms. Vance joining the board.)
