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The article that will be used for this summary is Theorizing Systemic Disparate Treatment Law. The reason that this article was chosen is because the researchers offered a hypothesis that could feasibly be tested in regard to the landmark decision handed down by the Supreme Court in Dukes v. Walmart. This decision was a result of a class action lawsuit brought by hundreds of thousands of female associates at Walmart to contest decades of alleged sexual discrimination against female employees as a result of Walmart's alleged discriminatory policies against women. Researchers who wrote this scholarly journal article made two separate hypotheses, the first hypothesis was that Walmart engaged in "second generation" discrimination, which made it more difficult for the plaintiffs to prove their case, and the second hypothesis was that because of the decision on behalf of Walmart that was issued by the Supreme Court, it will be more difficult for plaintiffs to file or win class action law suits against large corporations such as Walmart.

In reference to Walmart's policies, evidence shown in court provided an overview of the allegations regarding Walmart's lack of equity in managerial positions, which were overwhelmingly male in comparison to the amount of female employees who are hourly associates. In addition, the evidence appeared to show that Walmart significantly lagged behind its competitors in regard to equal pay for female employees and management positions or career upward mobility. Nevertheless, the plaintiffs were unable to prove demonstrated commonality between the policies of different Walmart stores and a company-wide policy that deliberated discriminated against female associates. Because of this failure in the largest class-action lawsuit of its kind, the researchers hypothesize that future class action lawsuits will be unable to proceed forward and will be required to shuttered into ...