Day 8: The Confederate Nurses Enterprise - A Thought Experiment

As of today, March 25, 2026 two hundred and eighteen days have passed since the verdict in Joppy v. HCA HealthOne, the landmark case at the intersection of racism in nursing, workplace mobbing and Civil Rights. 

The enterprise hasn’t commented on the verdict in Joppy v. HCA HealthOne. They’ve never acknowledged the facts underlying the case, or even responded to direct outreach by several people over several years, which leads to the obvious question: What’s their strategy? 

We can only speculate, so I developed a list of ten potential reasons why the enterprise hasn’t said anything about Joppy v. HCA HealthOne. We’re exploring each of these ten possible reasons over ten business days, and after seven days evidence shows: 

1. The enterprise has been aware of Joppy v. HCA HealthOne since early to mid 2022, when Joppy’s claims of race discrimination and retaliation were filed in US District Court;
2. The enterprise is at least aware of the issues in Joppy v. HCA HealthOne, i.e. race discrimination and retaliation in the nursing workplace;
3. The enterprise may not understand or appreciate the legal and historical significance of Joppy v. HCA HealthOne, which if true is a dereliction of duty.
4. The enterprise does more than just comment about ongoing cases. According to their CNO, “(W)e often have outreach with the individual or their representative or their attorney and we let them tell us what would be most helpful, particularly when it’s a legal issue.”
5. The enterprise and AACN policies regarding what issues they choose to speak on and who they choose to advocate for are confusing and contradictory. 
6. If the enterprise is silent because it finds the racism and workplace mobbing evident in Joppy v. HCA HealthOne disturbing, disquieting and/or uncomfortable, that’s evidence of moral failure from an org that says it serves the interests of over five million registered nurses. It’s cowardice.
7. Testimony and other evidence in Joppy v. HCA HealthOne undermines the myth of “most trusted profession” and makes the latest slogan “the power of nurses” sound like a creepy threat - “the power of nurses to do what?!?” Testimony in Joppy v. HCA HealthOne also raises questions about the purpose and value of two enterprise "must haves” - Daisy and magnet(tm).

Here’s what remains for us to explore:

8. The enterprise fears it might upset its most dominant demographic if it mentions Joppy v. HCA HealthOne; 
9. The enterprise is aligned with the Defendant in Joppy v. HCA HealthOne; 
10. The enterprise has a financial conflict regarding Joppy v. HCA HealthOne

Today is Day 8, so let’s see if the enterprise fears it might upset its most dominant demographic if it mentions Joppy v. HCA HealthOne.

8. The enterprise can’t mention Joppy v. HCA HealthOne because it might upset its most dominant demographic 

The 2024 National Nursing Workforce Survey, Registered Nurses (RNs)
Race and gender (pdf, pages S11-12)

“Joanna Seltzer Uribe, EdD, MSN, RN, is a researcher, informaticist, and co-creator of “Nurses You Should Know,” and has studied this phenomenon extensively. In her dissertation, “White Nurses, White Spaces, and the Role of White Racial Identity in the American Nursing Profession,” she details how white womanhood is embedded in nursing and how it harms us.”

“In the U.S., nursing is overwhelmingly led and shaped by white women… Our culture can be defined as one of white womanhood: not a skin color, but a set of messages the profession absorbs and reproduces. White womanhood creates a culture obsessed with niceness, respectability, and avoiding conflict at all costs. It demonizes anger, infantilizes white women as fragile, and dehumanizes Black women.”

The enterprise is “a professional association of members who hold widely diverse political views... Even as the 2016 PAC Board voted unanimously to recommend the endorsement of Secretary Hillary Clinton for president with her long history of support for ANA, nursing, and health care, there was angst within the PAC about whether or not endorsement was the best way forward for the Association.”

The perpetrators in Joppy v. HCA HealthOne are white nurse leaders, but recent events showed the enterprise can’t upset nursing’s most dominant demographic because they don’t want to lose the dues. 

“As you are probably aware by now, the ANA Board of Directors recently made the decision to uphold the 2019 Membership Assembly (MA) vote that rescinded the 1985 Presidential Endorsement Process and replaced it with a Presidential Engagement Policy. Whether to uphold the will of ANA’s highest governing body, which voted overwhelmingly to end the endorsement process, or endorse a presidential candidate in this year’s election (2020), was one of the most important and toughest decisions this board has made.”

It’s possible that the enterprise doesn't want to call attention to Joppy v. HCA HealthOne because the perpetrators were all white women and the enterprise is afraid to cause angst and lose members. There’s precedent for this fear, most recently since 2016.

Tomorrow we’ll speculate - Is the enterprise aligned with the Defendant in Joppy v. HCA HealthOne?