There's tons of laws and certain types of jobs are very difficult to fire people (unionized industries and govt. jobs). And there are laws and lawsuits for wrongful termination.
Private companies still have labor laws they have to obey. Except for certain types of issues employees can be fired. Depending in the size of the company things may be more or less formal.
For anyone who's curious, the texts I'm working off of are http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/retaliation.cfm and http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/facts-retal.cfm. It seems pretty clear that Adria is a covered individual and that an adverse action has been taken. SendGrid is almost certainly a covered entity. The remaining question is whether Adria has engaged in a protected activity and if that is what she was fired for.
The protected activity I think most closely matches what she did is, "Complaining to anyone about alleged discrimination against oneself or others." Now, in the case of this document, what they mean by alleged discrimination is any harassing behavior. But, I believe it is also typically only such behaviors by someone working at the covered entity. So the open question in my mind is whether the law covers adverse actions for complaints about harassment by third parties. I guess we'd have to ask a lawyer.
To the question of whether that is what she was fired for. If it isn't, it's quite a coincidence. I think it would be hard for SendGrid to convince a judge that she was fired for something other than her complaint.
"because they filed a charge of discrimination, because they complained to their employer or other covered entity about discrimination on the job, or because they participated in an employment discrimination proceeding"
I don't think this holds water.
If we're terminating someone for performance reasons we have to have a documented history of attempting to improve their behavior and objective measures which indicate that they were unable to improve. Otherwise we're likely to be sued for wrongful termination, which is one of the only circumstances where the burden of proof is on the accused and not the accuser (because, according to precedent as I understand it, the employer is at an informational advantage over the employee.)
If we're terminating someone for behavioral issues like sexual harassment or any other type of misconduct, there has to be robust documentation and evidence supporting that too should it ever come to a lawsuit.
In other words, I can't just do whatever the fuck I want. And I'm fine with that - employees and employers should both enjoy equal protection under the law.
It's factually true (in fact, it's not even that hard in most countries), but the way it is legislated is so vastly different that the labor laws the US has are almost insignificant. (The power of certain unions is a different matter, but that doesn't apply here.)
I'm just saying to anybody who perceives that the US is some sort of Wild West in regards to labor laws - you are not really going off of the facts. The US has a lot if laws that are complex beyond my understanding of them, and I actually am a business owner with employees!
One thing not mentioned - when you do terminate an employee your company often has to pay their unemployment (basically a short-term salary paid to them by the government), and your costs go up if you have many unemployment claims. So it is certainly not a desirable thing for either party to fire employees.
Well, considering that whenever the actions of an employer are questioned people on the internet are quick to assert that privacy in the work place does not exist and that employment is at-will.
I can see where our foreign friends get the impression.