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"

Chicago’s faith leaders on front lines of resistance against ICE crackdown; The Guardian, November 28, 2025

Siri Chilukuri, The Guardian ; Chicago’s faith leaders on front lines of resistance against ICE crackdown

"For weeks, Chicago has been at the center of the Trump administration’s brutal immigration crackdown. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Department of Homeland Security officials have arrested 800 people as of 1 October, while also using violent tactics such as body-slamming and deploying teargas in residential areas.

Amid the raids and arrests, which have created a pervasive sense of fear, faith leaders have stepped up, putting themselves on the front lines of resistance.

“Faith leaders bring a very powerful prophetic and moral compass into the space,” said the Rev Ciera Bates-Chamberlain, executive director of Live Free Illinois, a group that mobilizes Black churches around social justice issues in Chicago. “While many others may be able to argue the economic impact, or argue the law, faith leaders are typically the ones who are arguing and standing on the side of humanity and for people.”

Let’s Not Erase the History of Medical Ethics; The Hastings Center for Bioethics, August 18, 2025

Barron H. Lerner , The Hastings Center for Bioethics; Let’s Not Erase the History of Medical Ethics

"I must admit that when contributing a chapter to a new book on the history of medical ethics, I was uncomfortable with what some of my coauthors believed was the only ethical way to write history: to serve social justice. That is, history not only needed to portray past injustices to vulnerable groups but also to aim toward ameliorating the modern versions of these wrongs.  

But with the news that the Trump administration is planning to delete historical information that “disparages” Americans from National Park Service exhibits and the Smithsonian museums, I am rethinking my position. If there is one thing that characterizes good history, it is transparency. Even if one objects to the intense focus on acknowledging diversity, equity, and inclusion over the past several years, erasing what you may not agree with is not the answer. Our book, Do Less Harm: Ethical Questions for Health Historians, shows the virtue and importance of telling stories that conventional history has often left out.

That the book had a social justice angle was not surprising. The two coeditors, historians of medicine Courtney Thompson and Kylie Smith, as well as many of the other contributors, have for years been doing scholarship exploring the pervasiveness of racism, sexism, and ableism in the history of medicine. The Black Lives Matter movement, which accelerated after the murder of George Floyd in June 2020, led medical centers across the country to reexamine their own racist behaviors when it came to patients, research subjects, and even their own students and employees. Conversations about these and related topics energized those of us who were writing chapters.

Still, I remained uncertain that good history of medicine had to focus on these topics or, for that matter, on connecting these past abuses to similar events potentially occurring within medicine today. After all, wasn’t there a place for good history that wasn’t so overtly political—for example, telling the stories and ethical conundrums associated with famous medical figures, the discovery of specific diseases, the introduction of novel treatments, and the details of cutting-edge experiments?  

But the increasing threats by the current administration to National Park Service and Smithsonian exhibitions are causing alarms throughout the world of history. In an executive order issued in March, President Trump said he seeks to challenge “narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.” And in a recent letter to leaders at the Smithsonian, he stated that the institution should “celebrate American exceptionalism” and “remove divisive or partisan narratives.” To effect these changes, Trump has asked employees of the various sites to identify material they believe may be objectionable—and possibly removed or rewritten. What are some of the revisions being advocated?

One exhibit in Trump’s crosshairs, on the brutality of slavery, is housed at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia. A topic within that exhibit discusses how the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act required states to return enslaved individuals who had escaped. Similarly, concerns have been raised about an exhibit at Louisiana’s Cane River Creole National Park that describes the public whipping of escaped slaves and gives the names of the enslavers who carried out the beatings. If Trump has his way, these exhibits may be removed.

Potential changes do not only apply to issues of racism. For example, officials at Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina have called into question a plaque about the dangers that power plants and cars cause to plants and animals. At North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras National Seashore, an employee has raised concerns about a sign noting the danger of rising seas to wild horses.

The most worrisome thing about the potential removal of this information is its whitewashing of history. Even if one disagrees with specific claims, the best way to refute them is to provide counterarguments, not to “disappear” the contradictory statements. What’s the point of history if the parts of it that you don’t like can just be removed?

These threats to historical knowledge led me to reread many of my colleagues’ contributions to Do Less Harm. In his chapter “Centering the Margins,” historian Antoine Johnson describes much of the history of medicine as the “three D’s”: doctors, drugs, and diseases. While these topics are clearly important, focusing on them highlights the discoveries and innovations largely made by white male doctors. But who gets to say that this information is what should constitute the history of medicine? Aren’t the experiences of women and minorities, whether patients or health professionals, equally part of that history? By looking at the history of medicine through a lens of social justice, the potentially invisible stories come to light. One told by historian Ayah Nuriddin, in her chapter “Silences and Violences,” is that of National Negro Health Week, a grassroots initiative in the early 20th century that merged public health and racial justice efforts. This type of story is missing from traditional histories of medicine because, for too long, no one went looking for them.

Another largely absent topic in medical history is the treatment of psychiatric illness among Black patients. When Kylie Smith researched it, she found that psychiatrists caring for these individuals often created false dichotomies about emotional and psychological issues between Black and white patients. Such beliefs, she writes, “created and justified systems that segregated Black patients from white ones, alienated them from their families, and forced them to perform hard labor under the guise of therapy.” Perhaps this conclusion might be the sort that the Trump administration would rather not hear in its emphasis on the “grandeur of the American landscape.” But, again, excluding certain arguments from your accounts because you disagree with them prevents good history—finding facts, crafting arguments and revisiting previous scholarship—from happening.

Sometimes invisibility is right in front of our eyes. Several chapters in the book focus on museums that house medical specimens, usually “abnormal” body parts obtained decades or centuries ago for display to medical audiences as well as the general public. It took a social justice approach to history to start asking questions about these exhibits. Who were the people, so dehumanized in these displays, whose limbs and brains we now see? Is there any chance they gave consent to show their body parts? What are the ethical duties of museums that house medical specimens? Surely medical history should not only be concerned with these specimens, but also the lives of the individuals who have been partially preserved.

Finally, the most invisible group of all in medicine might be disabled people, who constitute roughly a quarter of the population. Even though such individuals are frequently under medical care, medicine has been interested in them only as examples of diseases or conditions. But who were and are these people? It is often hard to know. As historian Katrina Jirik writes in her chapter, “Disability, Archives and Museums,” “the voices of disabled people are missing from the archival record, muted, silenced by the voices of prominent actors.” Yet once you go looking for them, they are a rich part of medical history.

So, do I now think that all history must pursue social justice? I’m still not sure, but to the degree that it forces us to confront our complicated past, and to do so by finding previously unavailable information, it is a very important tool. The alternative—a sanitized version of history told with cherry-picked sources—isn’t really history at all.

Barron H. Lerner, professor of medicine and population health at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine, is the author of “The Good Doctor: A Father, A Son, and the Evolution of Medical Ethics.” He is a Hastings Center fellow. X: @barronlerner"

How do we lead moral lives in an age of bullies?; The Guardian, July 28, 2025

Robert Reich, The Guardian; How do we lead moral lives in an age of bullies?

"We are living in an age of bullies. Those with power are less constrained today than they have been in my lifetime, since the end of the second world war.

The question is: how do we lead moral lives in this era?...

This isn’t a matter of “left” or “right”. It’s a matter of what’s right.

Living a moral life in an age of bullies requires collective action; it cannot be done alone. Each of us must organize and participate in a vast network of moral resistance.

This is what civilization demands. It’s what the struggle for social justice requires. It’s why that struggle is so critical today, and why we all must be part of it."

NJ Bar Association Warns the Practice of Law Is Poised for Substantial Transformation Due To AI; The National Law Review, June 4, 2024

 James G. Gatto of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP, The National Law Review; NJ Bar Association Warns the Practice of Law Is Poised for Substantial Transformation Due To AI

"The number of bar associations that have issued AI ethics guidance continues to grow, with NJ being the most recent. In its May 2024 report (Report), the NJ Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and the Law made a number of recommendations and findings as detailed below. With this Report, NJ joins the list of other bar associations that have issued AI ethics guidance, including Florida, California, New York, DC as well as the US Patent and Trademark Office. The Report notes that the practice of law is “poised for substantial transformation due to AI,” adding that while the full extent of this transformation remains to be seen, attorneys must keep abreast of and adapt to evolving technological landscapes and embrace opportunities for innovation and specialization in emerging AI-related legal domains.

The Task Force included four workgroups, including: i) Artificial Intelligence and Social Justice Concerns; ii) Artificial Intelligence Products and Services; iii) Education and CLE Programming; and iv) Ethics and Regulatory Issues. Each workgroup made findings and recommendations, some of which are provided below (while trying to avoid duplicating what other bar associations have addressed). Additionally, the Report includes some practical tools including guidance on Essential Factors for Selecting AI Products and Formulating an AI Policy in Legal Firms, provides a Sample Artificial Intelligence and Generative Artificial Intelligence Use Policy and Questions for Vendors When Selecting AI Products and Services, links to which are provided below.

The Report covers many of the expected topics with a focus on:

• prioritizing AI education, establishing baseline procedures and guidelines, and collaborating with data privacy, cybersecurity, and AI professionals as needed;
• adopting an AI policy to ensure the responsible integration of AI in legal practice and adherence to ethical and legal standards; and
• the importance of social justice concerns related to the use of AI, including the importance of transparency in AI software algorithms, bias mitigation, and equitable access to AI tools and the need to review legal AI tools for fairness and accessibility, particularly tools designed for individuals from marginalized or vulnerable communities.

Some of the findings and recommendations are set forth below."

2021 Year in Review; American Libraries, January 3, 2022

American Libraries ; 2021 Year in Review

Looking back at the news that affected libraries

"ALA Code of Ethics gains ninth principle

On June 29, ALA Council approved the addition of a new principle focused on equity, diversity, inclusion, and social justice:

“We affirm the inherent dignity and rights of every person. We work to recognize and dismantle systemic and individual biases; to confront inequity and oppression; to enhance diversity and inclusion; and to advance racial and social justice in our libraries, communities, profession, and associations through awareness, advocacy, education, collaboration, services, and allocation of resources and spaces.”...

Emergency broadband discount program launched

In May, the Federal Communications Commission launched its $3.2 billion Emergency Broadband Benefit program, which provides discounts on broadband internet service and digital devices for eligible low-income households...

ALA speaks out against anti-Asian hate crimes

On March 11, the ALA Executive Board issued a statement in solidarity with the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association’s stance recognizing and condemning anti-Asian violence. The Executive Board called on ALA members to condemn the “wave of anti-Asian language, hate speech, and physical assaults on streets across the country, in media reports, in statements by politicians, and on social media related to the origins of COVID-19.”"

How Machine Learning Pushes Us to Define Fairness; Harvard Business Review, November 6, 2019

David Weinberger, Harvard Business Review; How Machine Learning Pushes Us to Define Fairness

"Even with the greatest of care, an ML system might find biased patterns so subtle and complex that they hide from the best-intentioned human attention. Hence the necessary current focus among computer scientists, policy makers, and anyone concerned with social justice on how to keep bias out of AI. 

Yet machine learning’s very nature may also be bringing us to think about fairness in new and productive ways. Our encounters with machine learning (ML) are beginning to  give us concepts, a vocabulary, and tools that enable us to address questions of bias and fairness more directly and precisely than before."

In These Divided Times, Is Civility Under Siege?; NPR, March 12, 2019

Leila Fadel, NPR;

In These Divided Times, Is Civility Under Siege?

"The calls for civility can feel like an effort to stifle people's outrage over injustice or hate, because civility can be a tool to build or a weapon to silence.

"To what purpose is civility going to be used? Is it going to be more inclusive?" Itagaki asks. "Is it going to mean that you're bringing more people's voices into the political debates, or are you using civility as a way to go back to the old hierarchies and the status quo since the founding of the American republic, where you only had white male propertied free landowners who were able to vote?"

So for some, now is a time to take a step back and be civil to each other. For others, it's imperative to be uncivil in a way that has led to social justice in the past."

Why 'justice' prevailed in 2018, according to Merriam-Webster; CNN, December 17, 2018

Rob Picheta, CNN; Why 'justice' prevailed in 2018, according to Merriam-Webster

[Kip Currier: 3,000th post since I launched this blog in 2010.]

"Robert Mueller's investigation of US President Donald Trump; Brett Kavanaugh's tense hearings in Congress; the fight for social, racial and gender equality: the past year has seen an absorbing and tumultuous news cycle. 

And now, "justice" -- the crux of some of the most gripping stories of the past 12 months -- has been recognized for its central place in the public consciousness.

 

US publishing company Merriam-Webster has named the noun its Word of the Year for 2018, after it saw a 74% spike in look-ups compared with 2017.

 

"The concept of justice was at the center of many of our national debates in the past year: racial justice, social justice, criminal justice, economic justice," the company said when explaining its choice..

 

The move follows Oxford Dictionaries' decision to crown "toxic" its word of the year, and Dictionary.com's selection of "misinformation" as its winner."

J.K. Rowling Defends Donald Trump’s Right To Be ‘Offensive And Bigoted’; Huffington Post, 5/17/16

Lee Moran, Huffington Post; J.K. Rowling Defends Donald Trump’s Right To Be ‘Offensive And Bigoted’ :

"“Now, I find almost everything that Mr. Trump says objectionable. I consider him offensive and bigoted,” Rowling said, after accepting a Literary Service Award for her commitment to free speech and social justice.

“But he has my full support to come to my country and be offensive and bigoted there,” she continued. “His freedom to speak protects my freedom to call him a bigot.”

Rowling added Trump’s freedom of speech guarantees her own and warned that “unless we take that absolute position without caveats or apologies, we have set foot upon a road with only one destination.”"