20.  Sandia maintains uniform employment, compensation, performance review, and  promotion policies throughout the United States.  Sandia also cultivates and promotes a common  corporate culture.  These policies and this culture originate in Sandia headquarters in the State of  New Mexico, and are disseminated to its offices in the rest of the country.      21.  Sandia’s laboratories and offices throughout the U.S. use a common  organizational structure, organizing employees by common job titles.   22.  While Sandia does not publish diversity figures, it has been reported in the  popular press that women make up only 32 percent of Sandia employees.1    24.  Sandia uses common, unvalidated, unreliable, and discriminatory procedures for  evaluating employee performance that systematically undervalue female employees relative to  their similarly situated male peers.  This has been true throughout the class period.   25.  Sandia uses a companywide “stack ranking” system for evaluating employee  performance, which requires supervisors to rank employees from worst to best using a  performance rating from 1 through 5, with 1 being worst, and 5 being best.  Only a certain  percentage of employees in a defined peer group may be assigned certain ranks—for example,  only a certain percentage of employees may receive a 5.    26.  This process is an invalid performance measurement system, as it sets arbitrary  cutoffs among performers with similar performance.  The stack ranking process forces a  distribution of performance ratings outcomes (from 1 through 5) regardless of whether there are  meaningful performance differences between individual employees within a particular peer  group.     27.  Worse still, an employee’s rank is not based on valid and reliable performance  measures.  Sandia instructs managers to evaluate employees, in part, based on four “personality”  or “behavior” factors: Strategic Thinking, Adapting to Meet Demands, Teaming with Others, and  Modeling Personal Accountability.  These criteria are invalid and unreliable and disadvantage  women.  Supervisors were instructed to use the four unreliable qualitative assessments of  employees’ performance (that is, Strategic Thinking, Adapting to Meet Demands, Teaming with  Others, and Modeling Personal Accountability) in assigning the employees in their review group  a recommended ranking from worst to best (1 through 5).    29.  This forced ranking process takes place annually, and performance review scores  are used for compensation and promotion decisions.     30.  In this system, female employees are systematically undervalued compared to  their male peers because female employees receive, on average, lower rankings despite equal or  better performance.  Upon information and belief, female employees are particularly adversely  impacted by “Center” meetings, where the vast majority of attending managers are men.  The  proportion of men in management roles only increases at higher levels of the organization.   31.  Predictably, performance management systems that include unreliable and invalid  criteria create inaccurate and biased outcomes, especially when they operate within a culture of  bias towards women, as is true at Sandia.    32.  Upon information and belief, Sandia’s stack ranking system has had an adverse  impact upon female employees.  Compensation   33.  Sandia employs common, unvalidated, unreliable, and discriminatory procedures  for determining employees’ compensation that disparately impact female employees.   34.  Gender inequity in compensation compounds over time because every annual  compensation decision, such as the amount of salary increase, is affected by an employee’s  current salary and salary band.    36.  Sandia’s uniform employment practices of salary setting and performance  evaluation cause a disparate impact on female employees’ compensation at Sandia.   Promotions   37.  Sandia also employs common, unvalidated, unreliable, and discriminatory  procedures for selecting employees for promotion.  Because promotions are tied to the  performance review process, female employees are adversely impacted in promotions as well.  Promotions are not determined by objective, valid, and/or reliable performance measures.      38.  In order to be eligible for promotion at Sandia, an employee must be at the higher  end of a salary band for his or her job title.  Because women earn less than similarly situated  men, men are placed more highly in the salary band and are therefore more likely to eligible for  promotion based on this factor.   39.  Additionally, to be eligible for promotion, employees must also have  demonstrated “leadership,” an unreliable, poorly defined, and tainted criterion, especially  because women often do not receive leadership opportunities in light of a culture of gender bias.    40.  Overall, upon information and belief, Sandia promotes an overwhelmingly  disproportionate number of men, and passes over equally or more qualified women.   42.  Plaintiffs are members of the Class they seek to represent.   43.  The members of the Class identified herein are so numerous that joinder of all  members is impracticable.  Sandia had a headcount of approximately 11,700 employees in 2015.   Although Plaintiffs do not know the precise number of female employees at Sandia nationwide,  the number is far greater than can be feasibly addressed through joinder.   45.  Plaintiffs’ claims are typical of the claims of the Class they seek to represent.   46.  Plaintiffs will fairly and adequately represent and protect the interests of the Class  they seek to represent.    47.  Plaintiffs have retained counsel competent and experienced in complex class  actions and employment discrimination litigation.   48.  Class certification is appropriate pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure  23(b)(2) because Sandia has acted and/or refused to act on grounds generally applicable to the  Class, making appropriate declaratory and injunctive relief with respect to Plaintiffs and the  Class they seek to represent.  The Class Members are entitled to injunctive relief to end Sandia’s  common, uniform, unfair, and discriminatory policies and practices.   77.  This claim is brought by Plaintiffs on behalf of themselves and the Class they  seek to represent.  Plaintiffs Kennicott, Garcia, and Phelps have filed timely charges with the  EEOC on behalf of themselves and the Class Members.     78.  Sandia has engaged in an intentional, company-wide, and systematic   policy, pattern, and/or practice of discrimination against its female employees.  Sandia has  intentionally discriminated against Plaintiffs and the Class in violation of Title VII by, among  other things:  a.  Utilizing a biased performance rating system;  b.  Utilizing a biased compensation system;  c.  Utilizing a biased promotion system; and   d.  Failing to take reasonable and adequate steps to prevent and correct the  use of unreliable, unvalidated, and/or illegitimate criteria to determine the terms and conditions  of employment.   79.  These company-wide policies are intended to and do have the effect of:   a.  Denying Plaintiffs and Class Members business opportunities because of  their gender;  b.  Compensating them less because of their gender;  c.  Failing to promote them because of their gender;  d.  Evaluating their performance more negatively because of their gender; and  e.  Providing them with inferior terms and conditions of employment as a  result of discriminatory performance measures that systematically disadvantaged them because  of their gender.   81.  As a direct result of Sandia’s discriminatory policies and/or practices as described  above, Plaintiffs and the Class have suffered damages including, but not limited to, lost past and  future income, compensation, and benefits.   82.  The foregoing conduct constitutes illegal, intentional discrimination and  unjustified disparate treatment prohibited by 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq.   83.  Plaintiffs request relief as hereinafter described.  84.  Plaintiffs incorporate the preceding paragraphs as alleged above.   85.  This claim is brought by Plaintiffs on behalf of themselves and the Class they  seek to represent.  Plaintiffs Kennicott, Garcia, and Phelps have filed timely charges with the  EEOC on behalf of themselves and the Class Members.    86.  Sandia’s reliance on illegitimate and unvalidated systems and criteria to evaluate  employee performance, set compensation, select individuals for promotion, and determine other  terms and conditions of employment, have an adverse impact on female employees in violation  of Title VII and are not, and cannot be, justified by business necessity.  Even if such system  and/or policies could be justified by business necessity, less discriminatory alternatives exist and  would equally serve any alleged necessity.   87.  Sandia has maintained these discriminatory policies, patterns, and/or practices  both within and outside the liability period in this case.   89.  The foregoing policies, patterns, and/or practices have an unlawful disparate  impact on women in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq.   90.  Plaintiffs request relief as hereinafter described.  91.  Plaintiffs incorporate the preceding paragraphs as alleged above.   92.  This claim is brought by Plaintiffs on behalf of themselves and the Class they  seek to represent.  Plaintiffs Kennicott, Garcia, and Phelps have filed timely charges with the  New Mexico Human Rights Bureau on behalf of themselves and the Class Members.   93.  Sandia has engaged in an intentional, company-wide, and systematic   policy, pattern, and/or practice of discrimination against its female employees.  Sandia has  intentionally discriminated against Plaintiffs and the Class in violation of the New Mexico  Human Rights Act by, among other things:  a.  Utilizing a biased performance rating system;  b.  Utilizing a biased compensation system;  c.  Utilizing a biased promotion system; and   d.  Failing to take reasonable and adequate steps to prevent and correct the  use of unreliable, unvalidated, and/or illegitimate criteria to determine the terms and conditions  of employment.   95.  The discriminatory acts that constitute Sandia’s pattern and/or practice of  discrimination have been based in and emanated from within the State of New Mexico, and have  occurred both within and outside the liability period in this case.  The discriminatory policies,  patterns, and practices have had a discriminatory impact on the female employees of Sandia  nationwide.   96.  As a direct result of Sandia’s discriminatory policies and/or practices as described  above, Plaintiffs and the Class have suffered damages including, but not limited to, lost past and  future income, compensation, and benefits.   97.  The foregoing conduct constitutes illegal, intentional discrimination and  unjustified disparate treatment prohibited by the New Mexico Human Rights Act, N.M. Stat.  Ann. 1978, § 28-1-1 et seq.   98.  Plaintiffs request relief as hereinafter described.  Disparate Impact Discrimination  (Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., as amended by the Lilly  Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009)  (On Behalf of Plaintiffs and the Class)   Intentional Discrimination  (Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., as amended by the Lilly  Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009)  (On Behalf of Plaintiffs and the Class)   Intentional Discrimination   (New Mexico Human Rights Act, N.M. Stat. Ann. 1978, § 28-1-1 et seq.)  (On Behalf of Plaintiffs and the Class)  