I looked, but found nothing in the laws prohibiting this form of "public humiliation". Defamation? Yes. Slander? Yes. But it appears to be a protected free speech right to post pictures that were taken in public places and to write truthful personal accounts of what happened. (And I found a lot of people who want to sue their landlord/ boss/ neighbor/ cashier/ etc. for public humiliation. I really don't think you want to open that can of worms.)
In fact, it appears (based on my limited reading of EEOC laws), that firing someone solely for making a claim about sexual discrimination may be illegal. Quoting from the EEOC compliance manual at http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/retal.html#IIpartB :
> Public criticism of alleged discrimination may be a reasonable form of opposition. Courts have protected an employee's right to inform an employer's customers about the employer's alleged discrimination, as well as the right to engage in peaceful picketing to oppose allegedly discriminatory employment practices.
Picketing surely contains an element of public humiliation, no? I'm sure that the factory owners would love to fire the picketers because the picketers were causing the factory owners to be humiliated in public.
I then dug up the cited Circuit Court case, Sumner v. United States Postal Service, 899 F.2d 203 (2d Cir. 1990). It says:
> To establish that his activity is protected under Title VII, a plaintiff need not prove the merit of his underlying discrimination complaint, but only that he was acting under a good faith, reasonable belief that a violation existed. Grant v. Hazelett Strip-Casting Corp., 880 F.2d 1564, 1569 (2d Cir.1989); Manoharan v. Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, 842 F.2d 590, 593 (2d Cir.1988). In addition to protecting the filing of formal charges of discrimination, Sec. 704(a)'s opposition clause protects as well informal protests of discriminatory employment practices, including making complaints to management, writing critical letters to customers, protesting against discrimination by industry or by society in general, and expressing support of co-workers who have filed formal charges. See Grant v. Hazelett Strip-Casting Corp., 880 F.2d 1564, 1569 (2d Cir.1989), and Schlei & Grossman, Employment Discrimination Law, 548-49 (1983).
So, Title VII protect employees who make "informal protests of discriminatory employment practices, including ... writing critical letters to customers, protesting against discrimination by industry or by society in general." Huh. That sounds like a pretty close description of this event, doesn't it?
It really reads like the various actions of Sanders are explicitly covered under Title VII protections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. If so, that means that firing her - if done because of those actions - illegal.
When you say the company was "right", do you mean that as a moral statement independent of what the law says? Or do you actually think that the this was a legal workplace action? If the latter, could you elaborate on how it avoids the seemingly relevant Title VII protections?
When doing so, please remember that select enforcement of employee rules is also illegal. For example, if you argue that it's acceptable to fire this employee because she took identifiable pictures of others in a public space, while on company time, then it can't be that others in the company have done the same and weren't fired. Similarly, if her supervisors have seen those sorts of pictures before and never gave a warning that they are against company policy, then they don't have much of a legal leg to stand on by suddenly enforcing it now.