Pictured above: Free Now Foundation Chairman Alix Mayer with Tawny at Freedom Fest, 2025.

Tawny is a dedicated nurse with a specialty in pediatric cardiothoracic intensive care. She is one of roughly 50 plaintiffs suing Rady’s Children’s Hospital in San Diego Superior Court for wrongful termination and discrimination. “They refused to accommodate us,” she said.  

Tawny is still barred from her nursing specialty as a result of seeking a religious exemption from COVID vaccination in 2021. She now works in a general medical setting, rather than caring for the patients she is trained for: fragile infants and children with complex heart and lung conditions.

Regarding her case against Rady’s, while a financial damage award would help, Tawny remains focused on principle. “I want this documented in court records so others aren’t discriminated against in the future. That matters more to me than a settlement or judgment, and for billion-dollar corporate interests like Rady, money and legal consequences is often the only language they speak.”

While Free Now Foundation is not directly involved in her case, we wholeheartedly support her and feel the public needs to hear her story.

A Nurse Called to Pediatrics

“That was my calling… I loved working in a cardiac unit. I loved the heart.”

Tawny grew up in a family dedicated to public service. Her mother was a nurse. Her stepfather, an ER physician, transformed emergency medicine by helping open care to all—no matter their insurance or health status. As a child, she watched her parents make late-night visits to the sick and suffering. “They always believed there should be choice and dignity in healthcare,” she says.

Drawn to pediatrics, Tawny helped open a new cardiothoracic unit at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego. She helped merge neonatal and pediatric cardiac services into a single unit: the pediatric cardiothoracic intensive care unit (CTICU).

Leaving her calling due to medical mandates was devastating. ““That was my calling… I loved working in a cardiac unit. I loved the heart,” she says.

“I can’t just go work anywhere. Cardiothoracic pediatric nursing is highly specialized,” Tawny says. Only seven hospitals in California offer CTICU units, with just one in San Diego. Commuting elsewhere simply isn’t feasible for a wife and mom.

Tawny excelled in her field as a veteran pediatric nurse and loves being a mother. She describes herself as adamantly not anti-vax. During the course of her childhood and professional career, Tawny “always got myself and my family fully vaccinated.” She never imagined she’d be forced out of her profession from the same hospital for refusing a new, still-experimental vaccine on religious grounds.

From Hero to Zero

“We risked our lives for our jobs and were celebrated as ‘first responders’ and ‘heroes, and then we were fired.”

In the first months of COVID, Rady was grateful for any nurses who came to work. Tawny had been at Rady for over a decade, and was fully committed to service, even in the midst of a frightening novel Coronavirus. She recalls those early days, when nobody really knew much about COVID-19.

“We risked our lives for our jobs and were celebrated as ‘first responders’ and ‘heroes.’ Later, after the vaccine rolled out, those of us requesting exemptions followed all of Rady’s protocols, which included regular testing and wearing an N-95, but we were fired.”

Tawny and her fellow nurses worked throughout the pandemic. Many received the COVID-19 vaccine, but many also felt that waiting made the most sense. By June 2021, vaccination uptake wasn’t 100%, and Rady tried implementing discriminatory policies, such as requiring unvaccinated staff to wear bright magenta ID badges. A veteran of the healthcare field, Tawny challenged the policy as a violation of California privacy law, since it easily identified the unvaccinated.

In July 2021, the staff and nurses began to notice a sharp rise in myocarditis among young, otherwise healthy patients. Even more troubling was that Rady lacked a VAERS reporting protocol, and doctors did not file independent case reports. At the same time, vaccinated staff kept getting COVID, and data from San Diego Epidemiology and Research for Covid Health SEARCH Alliance and UCSD echoed this, clearly showing that vaccines were neither preventing infection nor transmission.

Throughout it all,Tawny “stayed on the job,” committed to providing the best care to her patients. Her upbringing had infused her with a deep sense of empathy for the sick, ill and suffering and her patients were often some of the most fragile -—children with severe congenital heart, lung, and thoracic conditions.

When Mandates Over-rode Medicine

“We knew the vaccine wasn’t working. 227 healthcare workers at UC San Diego tested positive between March and July 2021, and 57% of them were fully vaccinated.” 

In August 2021, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) mandated COVID shots for healthcare workers. At the time, Rady policy allowed for exemptions with testing and masking protocols.

In early September 2021, the New England Journal of Medicine reported data similar to what SEARCH had found – that fully vaccinated healthcare workers were still getting and spreading COVID. The report, titled, “Resurgence of SARS‑CoV‑2 Infection in a Highly Vaccinated Health System Workforce” detailed how” 227 healthcare workers at UC San Diego tested positive between March and July 2021, and 57% of them were fully vaccinated.”

By September 22, Rady required unvaccinated staff to wear N95s for 12-hour shifts. Three days later, Rady issued a firm warning: unvaccinated staff be pulled from the bedside if not vaccinated. On October 1, Tawny was reassigned away from patients, in full compliance with testing and masking, while Rady ignored its own exemption policies and allowed vaccinated RNs—who could also become infected and spread the virus—to remain at the bedside.

On Nov. 24, 2021, she and colleagues filed a complaint in San Diego Superior Court.

The Breaking Point

“They completely ignored the workforce they had once celebrated and pretty much destroyed all of our careers. Hundreds of years of experience was lost when they officially fired us.”

The following February, in 2022, the CDPH issued a booster requirement for healthcare workers. At that point, many colleagues who had taken the COVID shot under pressure or due to financial necessity began to panic.

Tawny’s colleagues knew she had requested an exemption. “They needed to know how to send in a religious exemption. I told them what I knew about personally worded religious exemptions and afterwards found out that Rady was letting these nurses stay bedside.” This contradicted how Rady treated Tawny and others when their initial requests were denied—yet exemptions were later honored for boosters.”

“We were still employees of Rady, who was desperate for nurses. During this whole time, we are still getting text messages saying we have two ventilated patients without nurses. Please come in. They were paying double time, triple time to get nurses to come in extra and yet kept on saying that for the safety of their patients, they couldn’t bring us back.”

“How is a patient without a nurse more safe than someone who is testing twice a week or at the bedside? And not only a nurse, but highly trained nurses—the charge nurses, the cardiac specialists and ones in charge of critical treatments for critically ill pediatric patients in intensive care units?”

“They completely ignored the workforce they had once celebrated and pretty much destroyed all of our careers. Hundreds of years of experience was lost on March 31, 2022, when they officially fired us.”

Leaving her calling was devastating. Over nearly two decades, she earned the respect of her peers, mentored countless new nurses, and built a reputation for compassion and excellence.“I can’t just go work anywhere,” Tawny emphasizes, and the only hospital in San Diego County that offers a pediatric cardiothoracic speciality unit is Rady.

Despite the Data, Blame the Unvaccinated

“Genomic Research Alliance knew that vaccinated healthcare workers were spreading COVID, yet they told staff it was the unvaccinated spreading COVID and removed us from the bedside.”

“What’s amazing about the whole situation is that Rady, which has a long-standing affiliation with UCSD and described as ‘amalgamated’ in IRS tax documents, has an organization called the UCSD Genomic Institute. Rady also has its own Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine, and both are connected to the Scripps Research Institute Genomics Core Facility,” explains Tawny. “

“Both are doing deep sequencing genetics on patients. This deep sequencing is being used now for creating drugs and more personalized medicine. It’s really the future of medicine, and Rady is at the forefront.”

All the swabs and COVID testing done in San Diego County pretty much ran through the Scripps Genomic Research Project and SEARCH Alliance,” who later deemed that “repeated testing actions taken by participating healthcare and educational facilities were effective in preventing outbreaks.” (source.)

“What’s most interesting is that the project was testing healthcare workers, which is how the New England Journal of Medicine article about highly vaccinated healthcare workers getting and transmitting COVID came about. They used the UCSD healthcare workforce to show this.” 

Back in 2021, the Genomic Research Alliance knew that vaccinated healthcare workers were spreading COVID. “Rady helped set up the alliance, yet they told staff it was the unvaccinated spreading COVID and removed us from the bedside,” says Tawny.

“They had the evidence since the summer that wasn’t the case. What they did was completely political and malicious, a complete fabrication of the truth.”

The rabbit hole goes even deeper. “They partnered with Kristian Anderson at SCRIPPS, who received millions of dollars in grants from Fauci after he wrote his letter on the origins of SARS-CoV-2,” potentially a source for a follow up story on this fascinating connection between genomics, politics, science and our government.

Faith, Courage, and Dignity

Instead of serving the critically ill pediatric population where she has decades of experience, Tawny is now relegated to basic nursing duties in a general medical setting while continuing to advocate for medical freedom and awaiting a trial date for her lawsuit. Tawny’s story is not unique—but she is one of the rare healthcare workers willing to speak publicly. Her courage stands as a testament to those who faced unjust consequences for asking critical questions.

Want to help?

Connect with Tawny on  X
Stay in touch with Tawny’s story at Free Now Foundation:  Sign up for our newsletter.