A nurse at Rochester General Hospital was placed on administrative leave and removed from her union leadership position after she made social media posts containing racist content.
Though she has since deleted her Facebook history, screenshots circulating online show that Christa Vernile Kendall shared a post including an image from the widely condemned racist video that appeared on President Donald Trump’s Truth Social account on Feb. 6 depicting former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as jungle apes — and then commented, “Love it!”
When people called her out online for endorsing racial discrimination, Kendall, echoing the way White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt initially dismissed concerns over the AI-created clip, described it as “a comical meme” featuring Trump as the Lion King “that makes no difference whatsoever in the world,” adding that “Everything is not about race.”
Then she accused her critics of not caring about “issues that do matter,” including drug and sex trafficking by “illegal immigrants.”
One Facebook user, Star Davis, who is Black, wrote that she fell out with Kendall in 2020 after 20 years of friendship and serving as her maid of honor when “I finally saw her heart.” She was among the first to expose Kendall’s offensive posts, and has encouraged others to share them online and to make formal complaints to Kendall’s employer, Rochester Regional Health (RRH).
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Several people, including some nurses, responded that they did so this week, sharing concerns with the health system about racist content in Kendall’s posts, her role as vice president of the Rochester nursing union, and the fact that she works daily with Black patients and co-workers.
Rochester Regional Health (RRH) issued a statement on Wednesday acknowledging that social media posts attributed to an unnamed employee that “contain racist and discriminatory content” had led them to place the team member on administrative leave “while the situation is under review.”
“Language or behavior that is racist, hateful, or discriminatory has no place in our organization or in healthcare,” RRH stated.
The Rochester Union of Nurses and Allied Professionals (RUNAP) went further, releasing a separate statement condemning “the use of dehumanizing imagery in the depiction of Black people, regardless of political or other context” and confirming that Kendall is no longer its vice president.
“RUNAP affirms our opposition to all forms of racism and discrimination,” the statement continued. “…Our members and our patients are drawn from the full spectrum of the Rochester community, and our union must reflect that. Economic justice is inseparable from racial justice.”
Other health care practitioners and Rochester residents are now calling for Kendall to be fired and to have her nursing license revoked.
“She needs to lose her job. No one like this should be caring for anyone of color!!” wrote Kafi Damali on Facebook.
“Explicit racism,” replied Juan Barajas. “I wonder how many times their implicit bias encouraged them to do something unethical (lie, hold info etc) to someone of color.”
“This is not okay,” added Richelle Latenberger. “Unacceptable she should never be allowed to take care of another patient. Take her whole license.”
As the public backlash has mounted, Kendall has dug in to explain why she found the meme so funny.
“It was just a hilarity of the king of the jungle and Donald Trump being the lion AKA The King with all of his little recruits underneath of him,” she wrote. “It was for comedy purposes only. Everything is not about race. But yet that’s the first place the left always goes. Didn’t mean to offend any of you. But it was the comical aspect of this that I love.”
“I find it ironic that all the people in this group that have commented how disgusting this is, that you guys are worried about a comical meme that makes no difference whatsoever in the world,” she continued. “But you’re not concerned with the issues that do matter, borders, Law and Order, illegal immigrants, the drugs by illegal immigrants, the sex trafficking by illegal immigrants, the lunatics out there obstructing our law enforcement officers … the fraud across all the country that is costing us hard working tax paying Americans billions of dollars all over the place? Where is your outrage over the things that actually matter people to all of you that posted in here?”
Some people commenting on local news stories about Kendall being placed on leave by the Rochester hospital argued that her First Amendment rights to free speech are being violated and that her “woke” colleagues are too “fragile.”
Others countered that the First Amendment only applies to government action, protecting individuals from retaliation based on speech, but it does not apply to private employers, who can discipline or terminate employees for their speech.
Most people seemed concerned that about the problems that a racially biased nurse could pose to patients.
“Comparing Black people to monkeys is a historically documented racist trope used for dehumanization. That context does not disappear because someone labels it ‘comedy,’” said Cambria Nwosu, a licensed practical nurse and patient rights advocate, in a reel posted on Facebook this week.
“When a nurse publicly endorses and defends racist dehumanization, that raises legitimate concerns about bias in patient care, leadership decisions and professional conduct,” she said, noting that Black Americans already have to contend with documented disparities in maternal mortality, pain management, and emergency response outcomes.
“Bias is not abstract. It affects real patients. Administrative leave is an employment action. Licensure oversight is about public safety. Healthcare requires impartiality, ethical judgment and respect for human dignity. That standard applies on and offline.”
