• or it was given to an employee who is not a member of the same protected class (i.e., another woman).
If an employee provides this kind of evidence, the employer must articulate a legitimate and nondiscriminatory reason for not having given the promotion to this female employee. Usually this involves a reason that is clearly performance related. This is the point at which employers benefit from having designed and implemented a system that is used consistently with all employees. Such a system is legally decisions, and any decisions that resulted from the system, such as promotion decisions, are also defensible.