The Dalton School hosts an annual conference for New York City private schools on diversity, equity, and inclusion. This May, it was Rodney Glasgow’s turn to deliver the keynote address. Glasgow, a longtime school administrator who has founded multiple DEI consultancies, used his speech to address the elephant in the room: the parental pushback to "antiracism" at Dalton and other elite private schools, which made national headlines after Dalton headmaster Jim Best resigned amid the uproar.

The disgruntled parents, Glasgow said, were like the "white supremacists" who stormed the Capitol. And the schools that had admitted their children were like the Capitol police officers who had "opened the gate."

"There’s no truer metaphor for independent schools … than that moment on January 6," Glasgow told the attendees. "When will we stop hiring … the people on the inside who are opening the gate?"

Glasgow himself is no stranger to gatekeeping: He has held multiple positions with the National Association of Independent Schools, which sets accreditation standards for a group of more than 1,600 American private schools, including the country’s most elite and rarefied secondary schools. The association keeps a list of "approved accreditors" and outlines "principles of good practice" it expects them to enforce, including the promotion of "diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice" through "cross-cultural competency." If schools do not comply with these standards, they risk losing their accreditation and the perks that come with it, including access to the association’s marketing tools.