Yesterday, CFDA CEO Steven Kolb was filmed physically confronting PETA protesters during a New York Fashion Week show, including wrestling with a protester and covering her face while the show continued.

He has since said that he "reacted inappropriately." But an apology should not be where this conversation ends.

The source · CNN Style CFDA chief executive filmed confronting protesters at New York Fashion Week The full report, including video of the incident. In the footage, the phones around the protester stay pointed at the runway.

What struck me almost as much as his behavior was how easily everything around it kept moving. Because, you know … the show must go on.

If you've worked in retail and fashion long enough, you know that mentality well.

This is an industry that describes itself as progressive, disruptive and culturally relevant while maintaining a deeply entrenched culture of silence around power. People quickly learn what happens when they challenge the wrong person, question a decision, advocate for themselves or refuse to accept mistreatment.

Many of us have been quietly shut out of roles, brands, opportunities and networks for doing far less than what we witnessed publicly yesterday. Sometimes, speaking up, naming inequity or questioning leadership is enough to make you a target.

There is rarely a public statement when that happens. Definitely never an apology.

Instead, people are made to feel isolated and pushed out. You can make it to the final round of an interview, only to receive a call from HR asking whether you've ever worked with someone at the company. Then you learn you were blocked from being hired. Eventually, the calls stop coming altogether.

I've also seen CEOs with deplorable behavior and a history of harming people go unchecked, only to be hired again and again into C-suite positions, even when people know what they've done.

That's why this shouldn't disappear because Steven Kolb apologized. An individual apology doesn't answer the larger question of institutional culture.

Where is the collective responsibility from an industry that has allowed this culture to reproduce itself for decades? Where are the executives, brands, boards, trade organizations and leaders willing to ask what this moment says about fashion beyond one man's behavior?

Fashion has spent years talking about diversity, inclusion, sustainability, social responsibility and change. But an industry's values aren't measured by what it puts in a campaign or says on a panel. They're measured by what happens when someone disrupts the room, challenges power or refuses to remain silent.

Eventually, fashion will have to reckon with the difference between the values it markets and the culture it protects.

And whether they like it or not, this industry will have its reckoning too.

No matter what your views are about protesters, you do not have the right to put your hands on people, physically restrain them or cover their faces. Protesters may be disruptive, but physical force is not an acceptable response.

The protest was connected to PETA's opposition to the use of wool in fashion. PETA argues that sheep can be injured, mistreated or subjected to painful practices in the wool-sourcing process and is calling for brands to move away from animal-derived materials. Whatever your views on PETA or its methods, those concerns should be addressed through dialogue, policy and accountability, not physical confrontation.