of a class consisting of all African-American plant employees. Accordingly, the district court acted within its discretion to deny class certification on the basis of the appellants’ direct evidence. B. Statistical Evidence Nucor provided the appellants with actual promotion-related job posting and applicant data from January 2001 to February 2006. According to the appellants’ own expert, statistical analysis of this data resulted in a standard deviation of - .84, a result indicating no statistically significant disparity in the actual versus expected percentage of African-American employees successfully bidding on jobs. J.A. 5872-73. The appellants, however, objected to use of the 2001 to 2006 time period because it included job posting and bidding 759 n. 17 (4th Cir.1986) (<HOLDING>). Since the appellants could not prevail based
recognizing that the federal pleading standard is a less stringent standard than the delaware pleading standard recognizing that differences between the expected value and the observed number greater than two or three standard deviations are significant recognizing the cause of action recognizing cause of action recognizing that a standard deviation greater than two or three excludes chance as the cause of underrepresentation