Honoring Alex Pretti’s Moral Courage and the Cost of Caring; The Hastings Center for Bioethics, February 17, 2026

Connie M. Ulrich, Mary D. Naylor and Martha A. Q. Curley , The Hastings Center for Bioethics; Honoring Alex Pretti’s Moral Courage and the Cost of Caring

"The death of Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse who was killed last month in an anti-immigration protest in Minneapolis, is, first and foremost, a devastating loss for his loved ones. But it has also shaken the nursing profession to the core. 

People often encounter nurses at the bedside when they  are ill or someone close to them is ill. But nurses also have a long history of advocating for social justice in their communities, speaking out against unjust policies, challenging unsafe practices, and advancing public health reforms.

The 2025 Code of Ethics for Nurses reflects this activism. It calls on all nurses to be civically engaged and to work toward policies and systems that have positive ends for the communities in which we live and work. Alex met this call. 

Alex used his ICU training to help someone in need; it was second nature to him and reflected his primary obligation as a registered nurse to protect the rights and well-being of patients, families, and communities. He lost his life because he helped a woman during a protest against federal immigration action in Minneapolis. Pretti stepped in front of the woman, who was on the ground, to protect her from being pepper sprayed by U.S. Border Patrol agents. Agents then pinned Pretti to the ground and shot him.

Nurses are no strangers to conflict and moral turmoil. They take a professional and ethical oath to care for anyone — victim or perpetrator — regardless of their identity or ideological belief. But Alex’s death exposes a stark and troubling reality for every nurse and healthcare provider: Immigration enforcement agents are now occupying spaces that should be protected in hospitals, waiting rooms, lobbies, and clinics. These are places where patients must feel safe and trust that they will receive care without discrimination and be protected from intimidation. 

The presence of immigration enforcement agents in these places is creating profound moral distress and a climate of deep fear for all those who deliver care and for the people who need it most within these buildings. Nurses and other healthcare providers are caught in the age-old dilemma between what is ethical and what is legal: They question what they ought to do when faced with immigration enforcement agents standing outside hospital rooms and observing the care they are ethically and professionally obligated to protect.

When nurses and other healthcare providers cannot meet their ethical duties to protect the rights and welfare of their patients, this distress can intensify into a deeper wound with lingering residue of regret and a searing violation of their sense of integrity. 

For their part, patients may withhold critical health information, become afraid to ask questions, and mistrust health professionals when immigration enforcement agents are present. Patients who are immigrants are most vulnerable to these harms, but other patients may also experience them. The harms – to healthcare providers and patients – can ultimately compromise ethical decision-making, patient-and family-centered care, and the overall quality of care that all patients deserve, and healthcare providers are trained to deliver.

The patients and families cared for by Alex will always remember him. Nurses will remember Alex’s sacrifice – that his caring extended beyond the walls of his hospital to the stranger he protected in his community. 

Nurses can honor Alex’s moral courage through our individual and professional resolve. We must say no more to the infiltration of immigration enforcement into healthcare spaces that were previously off limits to them. We must speak out on re-establishing “safe zones,” hospital-wide policies that limit enforcement access, and confidential reporting mechanisms that reflect the humanity of the nursing profession towards those we took an oath to serve. 

May a better and more humane world prevail, reminding each of us that moral courage carries risk, but it also helps us rise to the occasion when change and moral repair are needed most. We are at that moment.

Connie M. Ulrich, PhD, RN, is a registered nurse and professor of nursing and of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and a Hastings Center Fellow. LinkedIn: connieulrich1, X: @cm_ulrich

Mary D. Naylor, PhD, RN, is a registered nurse and professor of gerontology and nursing at Penn’s School of Nursing. LinkedIn: Mary_Naylor,  X: @MaryDNaylor

Martha A.Q. Curley, PhD, RN, is a registered nurse and professor of pediatric nursing at Penn’s School of Nursing.LinkedIn: Martha-a-q-curley, X: maqcurley, Bluesky: @maqc.bsky.social"

New Year’s Eve Concerts at Kennedy Center Are Canceled; The New York Times, December 29, 2025

Adam Nagourney and Neil Vigdor, The New York Times ; New Year’s Eve Concerts at Kennedy Center Are Canceled

[Kip Currier: The principles of integrity and character are unsurprisingly alien to Richard Grenell. Artists are likely canceling Kennedy Center engagements because they don't want to be associated with an administration that has attacked free expression and the diversity of human experience, financially diminished the arts, as well as science, and that has violated federal law by adding Donald Trump's name to an arts organization memorializing our slain 35th President, John F. Kennedy Jr.

Standing up for values one believes in -- values that are bigger than oneself -- is an example of moral courage, not "derangement".]

[Excerpt]

"A veteran jazz ensemble and a New York dance company have canceled events at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, intensifying the fallout at one of the nation’s pre-eminent arts centers after it was renamed to include President Trump...

The Cookers did not give a reason for the decision in a statement on Monday that said, “Jazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the full human voice."...

Doug Varone and Dancers, a New York dance company, also said on Monday that it was canceling two performances in April that had been intended to celebrate its 40th anniversary. Mr. Varone, the head of the company, said it would lose $40,000 by pulling out.

“It is financially devastating but morally exhilarating,” he said in an email.

Richard Grenell, the Kennedy Center’s chairman, said in a statement on Monday night that the artists canceling shows were “far-left political activists” and that they had been booked by previous leadership. “Boycotting the arts to show you support the arts is a form of derangement syndrome,” he said."

Where is the moral courage in the decision to eliminate DEI at UMich?; The Michigan Daily, April 10, 2025

 Kevin Cokley, Ph.D., is the University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor of Psychology and Associate Chair for Diversity Initiatives at the University of Michigan, The Michigan Daily; Where is the moral courage in the decision to eliminate DEI at UMich?

"There appears to have been no resistance by the administration to the factually inaccurate criticisms of DEI by the regents, resulting in a pivot on the University’s supposed core values. Perhaps my understanding of values differs from the administration’s. Values are what people or institutions believe are fundamentally right or wrong and what are most important in life. Institutional core values are not supposed to be easily changeable, and if University leadership is so quick to abandon its core values of DEI, one may wonder if they were ever really core values to begin with.

I’m reminded of the proverb, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” This proverb means that in difficult times, individuals with strong character are even more determined to succeed. As the University and higher education at large are being threatened with, what are likely, unconstitutional executive orders, it is more important than ever to have leaders who defend the University’s core values rather than acquiesce...

Martin Luther King Jr. once addressed the moral courage that one needs to stand up for what is right. He said, “Cowardice asks the question — is it safe? Expediency asks the question — is it politic? Vanity asks the question — is it popular? But conscience asks the question — is it right? There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one’s conscience tells one that it is right.”"

Pope Francis had the moral courage to stand up for the Earth and its people; National Catholic Reporter, April 21, 2025

CHRISTIANA FIGUERES , National Catholic Reporter; Pope Francis had the moral courage to stand up for the Earth and its people

"The significance of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio's choice of "Francis" as his papal name cannot be overstated. It was a deliberate evocation of St. Francis of Assisi, who saw all of creation as a sacred manifestation of God's love. This choice was no mere symbolic gesture — it was a declaration of intent, signaling the pope's recognition that our relationship with nature is intrinsically connected to our spiritual well-being. In choosing this name, he aligned himself with a tradition that views nature not as a resource to be exploited, but as God's inalienable creation to be cherished and protected."

‘I became an optimist the night my wife died’: a science writer on loss and letting go of rationalism; The Guardian, January 4, 2025

Sumit Paul-Choudhury , The Guardian; ‘I became an optimist the night my wife died’: a science writer on loss and letting go of rationalism

"Everything that Shackleton achieved, he achieved with and because of those he had taken with him – 27 men chosen from more than 5,000 applicants. What did he look for? “The quality I look for most is optimism,” he said, “especially optimism in the face of reverses and apparent defeat. Optimism is true moral courage.”

Not many of us will have our mettle tested as Shackleton and his team did. But we all have our reckonings with life and death sooner or later, or other adversities that make us reappraise the world and question the future. It’s at such times that optimism can be hardest to secure, but also most valuable. Optimism, far from leading us to passively await our fates, can help us to actively explore our limitations – and transcend them."

What Would Michelle Obama Do?; Politico, February 11, 2017

Sarah Hurwitz, Politico; What Would Michelle Obama Do?

"We cannot know for sure what is going through the minds of those who have been silent or have responded meekly to such appalling words and actions from the president who is now the standard-bearer for their party. Some might agree with him, but for those who don’t, we can guess it may be something like this: A number of my constituents like Trump, so I better keep my mouth shut. I don’t want to anger the president because he could make my life difficult. Hardly anyone else in the party is sticking their neck out about any of this, so that must mean it’s OK to stay quiet. This is just the price we have to pay to move our agenda forward.

Such words are cyanide for moral courage. They are the enemy of integrity, compassion and common sense. When we say “never again” this is precisely what we mean—that we must never again talk over or talk away the truths we need to speak to, and about, those who misuse power.

During her time as first lady, whether reacting to videotaped boasts about sexual assault—“It is cruel. It’s frightening. And the truth is, it hurts”—or urging us to go high when they go low, Michelle Obama showed us what it means to speak such truths. She verbalized her moral impulses—period."

A generation of GOP stars stands diminished: ‘Everything Trump touches dies’; Washington Post, 10/9/16

Philip Rucker, Washington Post; A generation of GOP stars stands diminished: ‘Everything Trump touches dies’ :

"“There is nobody who holds any position of responsibility who in private conversations views Donald Trump as equipped mentally, morally and intellectually to be the president of the United States,” said Steve Schmidt, a veteran GOP strategist. “But scores of Republican leaders have failed a fundamental test of moral courage and political leadership in not speaking truth to the American people about what is so obvious.”"

30 Years After Explosion, Challenger Engineer Still Blames Himself; NPR, 1/28/16

Howard Berkes, NPR; 30 Years After Explosion, Challenger Engineer Still Blames Himself:

"The space shuttle program had an ambitious launch schedule that year and NASA wanted to show it could launch regularly and reliably. President Ronald Reagan was also set to deliver the State of the Union address that evening and reportedly planned to tout the Challenger launch.

Whatever the reason, Ebeling says it didn't justify the risk.

"There was more than enough [NASA officials and Thiokol managers] there to say, 'Hey, let's give it another day or two,' " Ebeling recalls. "But no one did."

Ebeling retired soon after Challenger. He suffered deep depression and has never been able to lift the burden of guilt. In 1986, as he watched that haunting image again on a television screen, he said, "I could have done more. I should have done more."

He says the same thing today, sitting in a big easy chair in the same living room, his eyes watery and his face grave. The data he and his fellow engineers presented, and their persistent and sometimes angry arguments, weren't enough to sway Thiokol managers and NASA officials. Ebeling concludes he was inadequate. He didn't argue the data well enough."

Ethics charges filed against DOJ lawyer who exposed Bush-era surveillance; ArsTechnica.com, 1/26/16

David Kravets, ArsTechnica.com; Ethics charges filed against DOJ lawyer who exposed Bush-era surveillance:

"A former Justice Department lawyer is facing legal ethics charges for exposing the President George W. Bush-era surveillance tactics—a leak that earned The New York Times a Pulitzer and opened the debate about warrantless surveillance that continues today.

The lawyer, Thomas Tamm, now a Maryland state public defender, is accused of breaching Washington ethics rules for going to The New York Times instead of his superiors about his concerns about what was described as "the program."

Tamm was a member of the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review and, among other things, was charged with requesting electronic surveillance warrants from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court."

Whither Moral Courage?; New York Times, 4/27/13

Salman Rushdie, New York Times; Whither Moral Courage? : " Rohinton Mistry’s celebrated novel “Such a Long Journey” was pulled off the syllabus of Mumbai University because local extremists objected to its content. The scholar Ashis Nandy was attacked for expressing unorthodox views on lower-caste corruption. And in all these cases the official view — with which many commentators and a substantial slice of public opinion seemed to agree — was, essentially, that the artists and scholars had brought the trouble on themselves. Those who might, in other eras, have been celebrated for their originality and independence of mind, are increasingly being told, “Sit down, you’re rocking the boat.”... It’s a vexing time for those of us who believe in the right of artists, intellectuals and ordinary, affronted citizens to push boundaries and take risks and so, at times, to change the way we see the world. There’s nothing to be done but to go on restating the importance of this kind of courage, and to try to make sure that these oppressed individuals — Ai Weiwei, the members of Pussy Riot, Hamza Kashgari — are seen for what they are: men and women standing on the front line of liberty. How to do this? Sign the petitions against their treatment, join the protests. Speak up. Every little bit counts."