African-Americans receive some of the promotions for which the plaintiffs applied, but Bacon’s supervisor expressed willingness to help him in his application to the purchasing department. Nor was the application process arduous; in most cases, all the plaintiffs had to do was fill out a form expressing interest. It is not unreasonable to expect plaintiffs to make such a minimal effort to preserve their rights. Plaintiffs also rely on the holding in Mauro v. Southern New England Telecomms., Inc., 208 F.3d 384, 386-87 (2d Cir.2000), that the application requirement did not apply when the plaintiff expressed interest in promotion to a class of positions but was unaware of specific positions because they were not posted. See also Dews v. A.B. Dick Co., 231 F.3d 1016, 1022 (6th Cir.2000) (<HOLDING>). Although each production department only
holding ones satisfactory performance of duties leading to a promotion does establish a plaintiffs qualification for a job holding on summary judgment that an employer may not utilize wholly subjective standards by which to judge its employees qualifications and then plead lack of qualification when its promotion process is challenged as discriminatory recognizing exception to application requirement when employer does not notify employees of available promotion and does not provide formal mechanism for expressing interest in promotion holding that the delegation of discretionary authority to supervisors for discipline and promotion constituted a policy or practice sufficient to satisfy the commonality requirement recognizing the public interest exception