Tennessee’s former vaccination chief is asking a federal judge to order a public “name clearing” hearing — open to members of the media and with her former bosses at the Department of Health required to attend, newly filed federal court records in an ongoing lawsuit show.

Dr. Michelle Fiscus was fired from her job as medical director of the state’s Vaccine-Preventable Diseases and Immunization Program on July 12, 2021, amid political backlash during the COVID-19 pandemic and over a longstanding policy allowing some children to get vaccinated without parental consent.

Fiscus had circulated a memo to the state’s healthcare providers in the weeks before she was fired about the state’s so-called “Mature Minor Doctrine,” outlining when healthcare providers are allowed to give vaccines to adolescents without their parent’s permission. Soon afterwards, Republican leaders contacted the department to complain.

Within days of her firing, health department officials made a memo available to news outlets that pointedly criticized Fiscus’ performance with allegations that Fiscus and her attorneys say are patently false.

The purpose of a name-clearing hearing is to “publicly contest these false charges,” according to a legal motion filed Friday in case, which has been ongoing in federal court since Fiscus first filed suit in September 2021.

Attorneys representing Dr. Fiscus’ two former bosses — the state’s Chief Medical Officer Tim Jones and Department of Health chief Dr. Lisa Piercey,...

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