A friend called me last night to tell me she was denied a promotion because she was engaged. Planning her wedding, she was told, would mean she would be too distracted to do her new job properly and would probably end up having babies and leaving the company anyway.

What could she do? she asked me.

Well, she could sue.

Charlotte Hanna did. The former vice president of Goldman Sachs Group filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court in Manhattan this week, claiming that the bank demoted her because she elected to take advantage of its part-time track after her first maternity leave, then fired her while she was on her second.

The Reuters writer Jonathan Stempel cites the complaint as saying:

When Ms. Hanna decided to take the “off-ramp” provided by the firm to devote time to her children, there was no “on-ramp” that enabled her to return to full-time employment. Essentially, the “off-ramp” was a direct path to a mommy-track that ultimately derailed Ms. Hanna’s career.

The complaint includes the allegation that 75 percent of those “selected for termination” in the group that was fired when Hanna was, had recently taken maternity leave, making it “clear that Goldman Sachs views working mothers as second-class citizens who should be at home with their children.”

Hanna’s lawyer, Douglas Wigdor, suggests that the economy is leading to an increase in such cases. Managers, typically men, “perceive that working mothers may not work as hard as men and may not be with the firm as long so they can be with their children,” he told Stempel. “That can make women seem more expendable.”

The Web site The Week, has a round-up of opinion on the case:

Hanna should have known better: “Everyone knows that when you pledge your allegiance to Goldman Sachs, they own you,” says Yael Bizouati in Mediaelites. After “the 36-interview process,” employees “simply belong to them — body and soul.” So the fact that they “got a bit annoyed when one of their own got pregnant” is “not surprising.” What is surprising, however, is that Hanna didn’t already know all this. Discrimination is a problem — for women and men: “Ms. Hanna’s case is at the heart of gender bias on the Street,” says Edmundo Braverman in Wall Street Oasis. Firms choose men over women because “they are willing to choose work over family.” Unfortunately, this is the same standard that creates “so many thrice-married (like me) senior guys whose children treat them like contemptible ATM machines.” The bottom line: “If your job isn’t your top priority,” says KJ Dell’Antonia in Slate’s Double X blog, “then you’re probably not your employer’s top priority, either.” So, “if your firm offers you a mommy track and you take it,” then sue them because your “luxury niche . . . becomes unaffordable,” it’s “only going to make employers less likely to create a haven for willing parents the next time around.

“If it’s not a money maker, it’s probably the mommy trap”

What do you think? If a firm creates a part-time track (for which you are paying someone less money) can they then think less of someone for taking it?

My friend, who has not been fired, just passed over (and, essentially, demoted) is not willing to risk her job by making a fuss. Should she?