A Google engineer who was fired for a memo assailing the company's diversity policies is considering legal action, but seemingly faces long odds of a successful case.

James Damore caused an uproar and ultimately lost his job after authoring a 10-page essay that said women are not biologically fit for certain technology roles. He also warned against “arbitrary social engineering of tech just to make it appealing to equal portions of both men and women” and claimed that efforts to hire more women via such methods are “misguided and biased.”

After he was terminated, Mr Damore - whose sacking has not been officially confirmed by the company - told Reuters that he was exploring his options and said he had filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board before he was fired. He claimed in another email to a number of outlets that he would "likely be pursuing legal action".

He did not respond to a message from The Independent seeking more details on his plans. A spokesman for the NLRB could not comment on any potential case, citing privacy protections.

Employment law gives employers broad discretion to fire at-will employees - workers who do not have contracts, like those negotiated by unions, that create more stringent requirements to fire someone. In an email to employees explaining the reaction to Mr Damore’s actions, Google CEO Sundar Pinchai - who is said to have returned from a vacation to deal with the matter - backed the rights of employees to “express themselves” but said Mr Damore’s comments breached the company’s code of conduct and “cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace.”

Such reasoning should be a sufficient reason for Mr Damore’s firing, said Reuel Schiller, a professor and labour law expert at UC Hastings College of Law, since employee protections prevent people being fired for discriminatory reasons like a person’s race or religion.

But there is precedent in California of courts ruling in favour of employees who were fired for being outspoken about their views, noted William Gould, a professor emeritus at Stanford who chaired the NLRB. In one case, he noted, the law sided with a pacifist who had shared his anti-war views with coworkers.

“Employees can speak out, but I think the employer’s defence would be that this guy was speaking about women in a very stereotypical manner that was likely to prove to be disruptive,” said Mr Gould.

Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Show all 13 1 /13 Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Ida Wells An African-American journalist and activist born in Mississippi in 1862, she wrote prolifically on the fight for women’s suffrage as well as the struggle for civil rights. She documented the practice of lynching black people in the southern states showing how it was often used as means of controlling or punishing black people who competed with whites rather than as a means of “justice” for crimes. Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Lotifa El Nadi Egypt’s first female pilot born in 1907 in Cairo. Although her father saw no need for her to pursue secondary education, expecting her to marry and have a family, she rebelled and worked as a secretary and telephone operator at a flying school in exchange for lessons as she had no other means to pay for the training. Her achievements made headlines around the world when she flew over the pyramids and competed in international flying races. Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Frida Kahlo A Mexican painter and activist born in Mexico City in 1907, her work has been celebrated internationally as emblematic of Mexican national and indigenous traditions and by feminists for its honest depiction of female experience. Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Lina Bo Bardi A Brazilian architect, born in Italy in 1914, she devoted her life to the promotion of the social and cultural potential of architecture and design. She is also celebrated for her furniture and jewellery designs. Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Olga Skorokhodova A Soviet scientist born into a poor Ukranian peasant family in 1911, she lost her vision and hearing at the age of five. Overcoming these difficulties in a remarkable way, she became a researcher in the field of communication and created a number of scientific works concerning the development of education of deaf-blind children. She was also a teacher, therapist and writer. Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Miriam Makeba A South African singer and civil rights activist born in Johannesburg in 1932, she was forced to work as a child following her father’s death. She became a teenage mother after a brief and allegedly abusive marriage at 17, before she was discovered as a singer of jazz and African melodies. After becoming hugely successful in the US and winning a Grammy, she became involved in the civil rights struggle stateside as well as in the campaign against apartheid in her home country, writing political songs. Upon her death, South African President Nelson Mandela said that “her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us.” Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Sally Ride An American astronaut and physicist, she was born in Los Angeles in 1951 and joined NASA in 1978 after gaining her PhD. She became the first American woman and the third woman ever to go into space in 1983 at the age of 32. Prior to her first space flight, she attracted attention because of her gender and at press conferences, was asked questions such as, “Will the flight affect your reproductive organs?” She later worked as an academic at the University of California, San Diego. Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Halet Cambel A Turkish archaeologist born in 1916, she became the first Muslim women to compete in the Olympics in the 1936 Berlin games as a fencer. She declined an invitation to meet Adolf Hitler on political grounds, and after the conclusion of the Second World War, she trained as an architect and later worked as an academic in Turkey and Germany. Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Ada Lovelace An English mathematician and writer born in 1815, she became the world’s first computer programmer. The daughter of poet George Byron, she is chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine, and was the first to recognise the machine had applications beyond pure calculation, creating the first algorithm intended to be carried out by such a machine. Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Rukmini Devi An Indian dancer and choreographer credited with reviving Indian classical dance, she was born in 1904 and presented her form of dance on stage even though it was considered “low” and “vulgar” in the 1920s. She features in India Today’s list of “100 people who shaped India” having also worked to re-establish traditional Indian arts and crafts and as an animal rights activist. Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Cecilia Grierson An Argentine physician, reformer born in Buenes Aires in 1859, she became the first woman in Argentina to receive a medical degree having previously worked as a teacher. Women were barred from entering medical school at the time, so she first volunteered as an unpaid lab assistant before she was allowed to train as a doctor. She was acclaimed for her work during a cholera epidemic before going on to found the first nursing school in Argentina. The harassment she experienced at medical school helped make her a militant advocate for women’s rights in Argentina. Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Lee Tai-young Korea’s first female lawyer and judge born in 1914 in what is now North Korea, she was also an activist who founded the country’s first legal aid centre and fought for women’s rights throughout her career. Her often mentioned refrain was, “No society can or will prosper without the cooperation of women.” She worked as a teacher, married and had four children before she was able to begin her legal career after the Second World War, becoming the first woman to enter Seoul National University. She also fought for civil rights in the country and was arrested in 1977 for her beliefs, receiving a three-year suspended sentence and a ten year disbarment. Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Suzanne Lenglen A French tennis champion born in 1899, she popularised the sport winning 31 championships and dominating the women’s sport for over a decade. She was the first female tennis celebrity and one of the first international women sports stars, overcoming a childhood plagued with ill health including chronic asthma – which continued to plague her in her adult life. At 15, she became the youngest ever winner of a major championship and lost only seven matches during her entire career. She received widespread criticism for her decision to turn professional, but defended her right to make a decent living in the days when the grand slam tournaments paid a relative pittance to the winners.

In his essay, Mr Damore complained about Google's "ideological echo chamber" and said he wanted to increase representation of women in tech without moving towards discrimination.

Mr Damore claimed to have received support from a number of colleagues for his views, while others have supported his right to hold such opinions even if they do not agree with them. Other Google employees are believed to have used an internal discussion board to call for Mr Damore's firing.

Reactions on social media have been split, with some users lambasting Google for stifling free speech and others arguing that Mr Damore's manifesto was symptomatic of broader issues with diversity in the technology sector.

Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, said he was offering Mr Damore a job, as "censorship is for losers". A number of right-wing websites such as Breitbart also rushed to his defence, with some people calling for a boycott of Google.

As for the firing, another consideration according to Mr Gould, is Google’s obligation to prevent sexual harassment. The company is already under scrutiny for how much it pays its female employees, with the Department of Labor suing for salary data.

The law also protects employees who are trying to engage in certain types of collective activities, the foundational example being discussing forming a union. Challenges to employers suppressing such activity are a substantial part of the NLRB’s brief.

But because Mr Damore’s essay did not seem designed to rally employees to his cause, his case there would be “pretty weak,” Mr Schiller said.

“If he had said ‘anybody who is interested in challenging the requirement that we go to diversity training, come meet with me,’ then he would have a very strong case,” Mr Schiller said, but it’s not clear Mr Damore’s memo was intended “to get people at Google to organize and protest against whatever the policies were that he didn't like.”

Alternatively, Mr Damore could assert that he was fired in retaliation for filing a claim with the NLRB - something that is clearly prohibited. But doing do would require him proving that he was fired for reaching out to the labour board, rather than for his memo itself, and that the reason for his firing was part of a “concerted effort” - again, not just one employee speaking out but a part of a larger movement.