Many reasons exist for the recent free speech debacle at Stanford Law School , where students shouted down Kyle Duncan, a federal appeals court judge, at a Federalist Society student chapter event. American higher education’s growing intolerance of free speech certainly played a role in nurturing a culture in which law students feel free to yell and scream at a sitting jurist. The students themselves bear personal responsibility for their shameful conduct. And, despite knowing that protests were likely, the school’s administration failed to take precautions to ensure that Duncan could give his remarks.

Tirien Steinbach, the school’s associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion , warrants special attention for her disgraceful behavior in this controversy. Indeed, when Duncan called for an administrator to intervene to allow him to talk, Steinbach read prepared remarks and asked, “Is the juice worth the squeeze?” — i.e., is allowing Duncan to speak worth the “pain” his remarks would cause? It’s likely Steinbach played a role in orchestrating the confrontation in the first place. And as a result, the judge left the event without having an opportunity to speak.

Although Stanford Law School is a private institution, it claims to maintain policies that uphold campus free speech and academic freedom and prohibit disruptions of campus events. On its website, Stanford University prominently displays its long-standing Fundamental Standard , which has required students since 1896 to respect the rights of others and “to uphold the integrity of the university as a community of scholars in which free speech is available to all and intellectual honesty is available to all.” The Fundamental Standard protects speech, even speech that is objectionable to some. The school incorporated the Fundamental Standard in its own policies, along with the university campus disruptions policy . Clearly, Steinbach knew that these policies should have governed the Federalist Society event with Duncan.

Weeks have passed since the disruption, and the passage of time raises a critical question: why hasn’t Stanford Law School’s accreditor, the American Bar Association (or more precisely, the Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar of the American Bar Association), launched an investigation or at least an inquiry into the incident? The school’s failure to follow long-held, prominently displayed institutional policies in violation of the ABA’s own accreditation criteria and federal legal requirements require the agency to demand accountability from the law school.

The Department of Education recognizes the ABA as the sole accrediting agency of programs in the United States leading to the first professional degree in law. In 46 states, a student must graduate from an ABA-approved school to be eligible for admission to the bar. Among the standards for approving a law school’s accreditation, ABA Standard 405 requires institutions to “have an established and announced policy with respect to academic freedom and tenure.” ABA Standard 509 mandates that “all information that a law school reports, publicizes, or distributes shall be complete, accurate and not misleading to a reasonable law school student or applicant,” warning that a violation of this standard “may result in sanctions” under its rules of procedure. Available sanctions under the ABA’s Procedural Rule 15 include fines, tuition refunds to students, censure, probation, and withdrawal of accreditation.

Stanford Law has clearly violated these accreditation standards. The school failed to follow its own Fundamental Standard and campus disruptions policy, which it advertises to applicants, students, faculty, and the general public on its website. Not only did Stanford Law allow a rude and unruly mob to silence an invited speaker, but one of its administrators cheered on that mob as it trampled Duncan’s right to speak and disrupted the Federalist Society’s event.

The Education Department also has a role to play in this unpleasant saga. If the ABA turns a blind eye to Stanford Law’s violations, then the department must remind the ABA of its legal responsibilities as a department-recognized accreditation agency. The Higher Education Act requires accreditation agencies such as the ABA to maintain and enforce consistent standards to assess, among other things, an institution’s “catalogs,” “publications,” and “advertising,” which in Stanford Law School’s case include misleading promises about free speech and disruptions of campus events published on its website. If the ABA refuses to investigate Stanford Law and enforce its accreditation criteria, the Education Department should remind the ABA of its duty to enforce its standards requiring Stanford Law to abide by its published policies. Failing quick compliance by the ABA, the department should commence its own inquiry into the ABA’s failure to comply with its legal responsibilities as a department-recognized accreditor.

Stanford Law Dean Jennifer Martinez was no doubt trying to get ahead of these issues when she released a letter to the Stanford community on March 22, nearly two weeks after the incident. Unfortunately, she announced that the student mob would not be disciplined. Instead, all students, including the Federalist Society students who hosted the event and students who wanted to listen and engage respectfully, will have to attend mandatory training on free speech and the legal profession.

More disappointingly, the letter confirmed that Steinbach, although on leave, remained employed by the school. Oddly, although she included some eloquent rhetorical support for campus free speech, Martinez did not discuss the Fundamental Standard or the campus event disruption policy.

For her part, Steinbach remains vexatiously defiant and has publicly contradicted Martinez’s defense of free speech by asserting the need for “balance” between this foundational principle and DEI. In failing to quickly rein in and discipline Steinbach and the unruly students, Stanford Law has stumbled.

For years, illiberalism has spread like wildfire across American campuses, with free speech infringements occurring at law schools at Yale , Georgetown , and the City University of New York . Like most accreditation agencies, the ABA has done nothing to stop this damaging trend. The incident at Stanford should be a wake-up call for the ABA that it must take seriously its obligations to ensure that law schools abide by their published commitments (and, in the case of public institutions, First Amendment requirements) to protect free speech and academic freedom on campus. Continued refusal to do so calls into question why Congress should allow the ABA and other accreditation agencies their outsize importance in American higher education.

Robert S. Eitel is president and co-founder of the Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies and served as a former senior counselor to the U.S. secretary of education. Paul Zimmerman serves as policy counsel at DFI.