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Text: This Court’s opinion in Falcon describes how the com monality issue must be approached. There an employee who claimed that he was deliberately denied a promotion on account of race obtained certification of a class compris ing all employees wrongfully denied promotions and all applicants wrongfully denied jobs. 457 U. S., at 152. We rejected that composite class for lack of commonality and typicality, explaining: “Conceptually, there is a wide gap between (a) an in dividual’s claim that he has been denied a promotion [or higher pay] on discriminatory grounds, and his otherwise unsupported allegation that the company has a policy of discrimination, and (b) the existence of a class of persons who have suffered the same injury as that individual, such that the individual’s claim

and the class claim will share common questions of

law or fact and that the individual’s claim will be typi

cal of the class claims.” Id., at 157–158.

Falcon suggested two ways in which that conceptual gap might be bridged. First, if the employer “used a biased testing procedure to evaluate both applicants for employ ment and incumbent employees, a class action on behalf of every applicant or employee who might have been preju diced by the test clearly would satisfy the commonality and typicality requirements of Rule 23(a).” Id., at 159, n. 15. Second, “[s]ignificant proof that an employer oper ated under a general policy of discrimination conceivably could justify a class of both applicants and employees if the discrimination manifested itself in hiring and pro motion practices in the same general fashion, such as through entirely subjective decisionmaking processes.” Ibid. We think that statement precisely describes respon dents’ burden in this case. The first manner of bridging the gap obviously has no application here; Wal-Mart has no testing procedure or other companywide evaluation method that can be charged with bias. The whole point of permitting discretionary decisionmaking is to avoid evalu ating employees under a common standard.

The second manner of bridging the gap requires “signifi cant proof ” that Wal-Mart “operated under a general policy of discrimination.” That is entirely absent here. Wal-Mart’s announced policy forbids sex discrimination, see App. 1567a–1596a, and as the District Court recog nized the company imposes penalties for denials of equal employment opportunity, 222 F. R. D., at 154. The only evidence of a “general policy of discrimination” respon dents produced was the testimony of Dr. William Bielby, their sociological expert. Relying on “social framework” analysis, Bielby testified that Wal-Mart has a “strong corporate culture,” that makes it “ ‘vulnerable’ ” to “gender bias.” Id., at 152. He could not, however, “determine with any specificity how regularly stereotypes play a meaning ful role in employment decisions at Wal-Mart. At his deposition . . . Dr. Bielby conceded that he could not calcu late whether 0.5 percent or 95 percent of the employment decisions at Wal-Mart might be determined by stereotyped thinking.” 222 F. R. D. 189, 192 (ND Cal. 2004). The parties dispute whether Bielby’s testimony even met the standards for the admission of expert testimony under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 702 and our Daubert case, see Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U. S. 579 (1993).8 The District Court concluded that Daubert did not apply to expert testimony at the certifica tion stage of class-action proceedings. 222 F. R. D., at 191. We doubt that is so, but even if properly considered, Bielby’s testimony does nothing to advance respondents’ case. “[W]hether 0.5 percent or 95 percent of the employ ment decisions at Wal-Mart might be determined by stereotyped thinking” is the essential question on which respondents’ theory of commonality depends. If Bielby admittedly has no answer to that question, we can safely disregard what he has to say. It is worlds away from “significant proof ” that Wal-Mart “operated under a gen eral policy of discrimination.”