Brendan Mcdermid / Reuters

Lauren Odes and her attorney Gloria Allred (R) speak at a news conference in New York, May 21, 2012. Odes is suing her former employer, claiming she was dismissed for dressing too provocatively.

The website for a Manhattan lingerie boutique called Native Intimates has a photograph of a well-endowed woman pushing her breasts together. So, it’s odd that an employee of the shop is claiming she was fired for being “too hot.”

But that’s exactly what Lauren Odes is alleging.

“When I was first told that I was ‘too hot’ and that my breasts were too large I was shocked,” said Odes in a statement released Tuesday. Her sexy appearance, she said, got her a pink slip from an employer who sells intimate apparel much sexier than your basic slips.

Not surprisingly her story is getting a lot of media attention thanks in part to the celebrity lawyer representing her, Gloria Allred, who held a press conference Monday about the allegations. Allred has taken on many high profile and controversial discrimination cases in her day, including the case of a banker who claimed in 2010 she was fired for being too sexy.

In Odes’ case, however, the work environment would seem a bit more conducive to a little cleavage.

Odes began working for Native Intimates on April 24 handling data entry and shipping tasks, but by May 1 she was out of a job. She alleges her supervisors told her that her choice of clothing was disliked by the company’s owner, an Orthodox Jew.

In a statement, Allred said a complaint has been filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in New York claiming Odes “was simply fired for being attractive and for not conforming to the religious strictures imposed by top management, apparently for having female body parts, despite having ably performed her professional duties.”

A woman reached by phone at Native Intimates would only say: “We’re not interested in giving a comment.”

A spokeswoman for the EEOC would not comment on the complaint.

Odes is alleging two types of discrimination: one based on gender and another based on religion.

Being too hot is not a protected category under the nation’s labor laws, but being terminated because you’re a woman or for religious bias is a legal no-no.

It’s unclear exactly why Odes was fired, but what is clear is employers have a lot of latitude in restricting what their employees can wear.

“All companies, regardless of whether they’re selling lingerie or whatever, are permitted to have and enforce dress codes that an owner sees as appropriate,” said Keisha-Ann G. Gray, an employment attorney for Proskauer, a law firm that represents employers. “They are permitted to require their employee to dress conservatively,” she noted, if it’s applied equally among workers of different genders, religions, and races.

Odes said she asked about a dress code when she was hired. She said she was told to look around and see what everyone else was wearing. "The dress varied from very casual athletic wear to business dress,” she said.

She also claimed she was wearing “very covered up attire” but it was her body that was the target of her employer’s disdain. She said that at one point a female employee suggested that she consider taping down her breasts.

Women are often held to a double standard at work when it comes to their appearance, said Anne York, associate professor of economics at Meredith College’s School of Business in Raleigh, N.C.

While a supervisor may have thought she might turn off customers, she said, a well-endowed woman would seem like the perfect fit for a lingerie business. 

Employees have religious rights in the workplace, but wearing your religion on your sleeve at work can be hazardous to your career.

The question of how much religion in the workplace is too much is playing out in a California court this week with a closely watched case involving a former NASA employee.

David Coppedge, a former computer specialist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is claiming he lost his managerial role and then his job because he believes in a higher power. His employer says he was harassing employees but was ultimately let go as part of a round of mass layoffs.

Coppedge admitted in a court filing that he was engaging his co-workers in religious conversation, most notably handing out DVDs on intelligent design, and that he was warned by a supervisor to cut it out because it amounted to “pushing religion,” and that the dialogue was “unwelcome” and “disruptive.”

Despite this, Coppedge is suing his former employer for religious discrimination, harassment and wrongful termination.

This type of religious conflict at work is something we’re seeing more of today, compared to even a few decades ago when the workplace was more homogenous, said Jamie Prenkert, an attorney and associate professor of business law at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business.

There is more diversity in offices and factories, and the labor laws have been bolstered to protect the religious rights of employees, covered under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Indeed, cases of religious discrimination filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have been on the rise since 1997, reaching 4,151 charges last year.

Employers are required to provide “reasonable accommodation for the religious practices and beliefs of employees” under the law. When it's not considered an undue hardship for employers by the courts, workers have won battles including everything from not working on certain religious holidays to prayer time to wearing religious garb. 

Increasingly, however, workers are pushing the envelope on what they want to do in the name of their religion, Prenkert said, because many individuals are politically and socially emboldened today to “carry their religion into all aspects of their life.”

That desire, however, can create problems at work. “When you bring that together in the workplace with people of varying backgrounds and beliefs that have to work together, it often results in allegations of intolerance that fly both ways,” he said.

It’s tempting to say we should leave religion at the door, Prenkert added, “but that does ignore some people’s deeply held beliefs.”

Clearly, an employer can’t discriminate against an employee based on religion, but that doesn’t mean your boss has to put up with all behaviors associated with your beliefs, especially if they include harassment, said Joanna Friedman an employment attorney with Tully Rinckey in Washington.

When it comes to religion in the workplace, she said, “it’s fine for employees and even supervisors to talk about religious beliefs as long as it's not done in a manner that’s intimidating or interferes with employment duties or creates a situation where you’re abusing your authority,” she stressed.

It’s unclear if Coppedge stepped over the line.

In his suit, he claims he did not “coerce” or “compel” anyone and that he was singled out because of: “his religious convictions generally, and specifically for his belief in God as the creator of the universe, his support for California’s Proposition 8, which was adopted by voters in November 2008 (striking down the rights of same-sex couples to marry), and his request that JPL’s annual "holiday party" be renamed the "Christmas party," as it had been called in the past.”

But in the suit, he also admits that employees complained to managers about him harassing them by talking about his religious convictions and giving them religious DVDs as gifts.

A spokeswoman for NASA Veronica McGregor said, “Mr. Coppedge was laid off during downsizing. There had been issues, not with the content of Coppedge’s speech but the way he interacted with his co-workers. Of course, that was a separate issue from the layoffs that occurred later.” 

While it’s impossible to say who will prevail in the case, Friedman said handing out religious DVDs could be troublesome from a legal perspective.

“The law gives broad protections to employees and managers when it comes to religious beliefs,” she said, “but once an employee’s conduct in the workplace creates problems because of their beliefs, that’s problematic.” 

The number of pregnancy discrimination charges increased about 15 percent in the last 10 years to 5,797 last year.

It’s hard to imagine we still have to tell employers this today, but here goes: Pregnancy discrimination is illegal.

While it may sound obvious to some, blatant pregnancy bias is still alive and well in the workplace. A pregnant woman who applied for a job at a Subway franchise in Phoenix was told by a manager “we can’t hire you because you’re pregnant.” Last month, she won punitive damages against the employer.

It’s just one example of the types of flagrant pregnancy discrimination that the federal government is trying to stop.

“A few employers have forgotten, or never learned, that it’s against the law to discriminate against women because of pregnancy,” David Lopez, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's general counsel, said during a public meeting before the EEOC commissioners Wednesday.

It’s unlawful, he stressed, to deprive a pregnant woman "the opportunity to sustain herself or her family based on stereotypical assumptions” that she won’t be as dedicated to her employers as a man or a woman who isn't pregnant.

The number of pregnancy discrimination charges increased about 15 percent in the last 10 years to 5,797 last year. That's down slightly from 2010's total claims of 6,119, according to the EEOC.

While the EEOC is doing outreach to employers so they understand the law, the agency is also using the big-stick approach.

The EEOC has increased the number of cases it has filed against employers when it comes to pregnancy bias, Lopez said, reaching 20 cases last year, inching up from 19 in 2010.

He pointed to a $1.64 million settlement reached with Akal Security Inc., the largest provider of contract security services to the federal government, in 2010. The agency claimed Akal had a national policy “of forcing its pregnant employees, working as contract security guards on U.S. Army bases, to take leave and discharging them because of pregnancy.”

Such conduct, the agency maintained, violated the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which prohibits gender discrimination in employment, including pregnancy discrimination.

This type of bias can hit low-wage workingwomen the hardest, said Sharon Terman, senior staff attorney in the gender equity program at The Legal Aid Society Employment Law Center, who spoke at the EEOC event.

“We’ve heard from many women who were fired immediately upon announcing their pregnancy and whose employers explicitly told them the pregnancy was the reason,” she explained.

Low-income women who become pregnant, she continued, are routinely denied minor workplace accommodations that would help them continue working. A common example of accommodations would be allowing a worker to sit on a stool instead of standing all day, or letting her carry a water bottle.

She offered one case of a pregnant janitor who was fired via text message by her boss after she told him her obstetrician was late for her appointment.

Many poorer workers also don’t have paid sick days, she pointed out. The United States is one of the only industrialized nations that does not mandate paid sick days for employees. While some states have passed laws requiring some paid sick time, the majority of workers nationally are not covered by such legislation.

Although many employers have anti-discrimination policies, it still occurs. Employment attorney Sara Begley said, “Unenlightened managers who are simply focused on getting the job done may violate a pregnant employee's protected rights by taking adverse action for taking maternity leave, not provide salary increases or bonuses to employees on leave, assume an employee will not return post leave and transfer her duties to another employee, assume an employee will be on Mommy Track post maternity leave."

Such outdated assumptions, she added, “can and must be remedied by training and enforcement of applicable policies."

The biggest “knowledge gap” when it comes to the law, she added, appears to be with smaller firms who just don’t have adequate training.  

While reaching out and educating employers is important, said EEOC Commissioner Stuart Ishimaru, he shared his frustration that so little has changed in the 35 years since the Pregnancy Discrimination Act was passed.

“Why have we missed the boat?” he asked the panelists assembled at the hearing. Why, he added, does pregnancy bias persist? “It’s a puzzle to me.”

Judy Lichtman, senior advisor to the National Partnership for Women and Families, who spoke at the hearing, said it was all about long-standing stereotypes, and not just regarding pregnancy but for caregiving too. Our society doesn’t value people with family responsibilities, she said. “What are our real obligations to change an engrained paradigm?”