We, the undersigned, would like to condemn the firing of NYU Langone Health nurse Hensen Jabr by your administration on May 22nd, 2024. It was on this day that she received an award for providing “exemplary care to patients and their families during perinatal bereavement” that she was dismissed for her acceptance speech remarks, “It pains me to see women from my country going through unimaginable losses themselves during the current genocide in Gaza.” As a Palestinian-American, she added, “Even though I can’t hold their hands and comfort them as they grieve their unborn children and the children they have lost during this genocide, I hope to keep making them proud as I keep representing them at NYU”. As she received an award for her compassionate care of families grieving their unborn children, she acknowledged that her work and purpose are a part of her humanity that are a salve as she watches her people en masse experiencing this pain. 

Shamefully, she was released from her duties, after nine years of award winning and compassionate work, for “putting others at risk” at the award ceremony by merely using the word “genocide”. She was told that she ruined the ceremony by speaking of her identity and reality. Though our media does a poor job of capturing this truth, every international legal authority acknowledges that the indiscriminate bombing of civilians and infrastructure as well as the statements by Israeli officials and intentional starvation of a population whose water and food sources are already controlled by their occupier, is a clear case of genocide. Compassion is not political, it is human, and NYC Langone is showing it does not understand this.

The termination process initiated against Nurse Hensen Jabr is rooted in discrimination. Nurse Hensen Jabr is clearly being punished for saying something that made others uncomfortable, rather than the ridiculous claim that there was something inherently dangerous to what she has said.

We urge NYU Langone to apologize to and reinstate award winning Nurse Hensen Jabr, and treat her with a shred of the humanity NYU Langone just awarded her for