AMENDED OPINION
Appellant Wendy McMullen brought this action against her former employer, Meijer Inc., seeking a declaratory judgment that her Title VII claims are not subject to the mandatory pre-dispute arbitration agreement she signed upon accepting employment with Meijer. Although McMullen acknowledges that the terms of the arbitration agreement cover her statutory employment discrimination claims, she contends that the arbitration agreement is unenforceable with regard to her Title VII claims because it grants Meijer exclusive control over the pool of potential arbitrators from which the arbitrator is selected.
After initially denying Meijer’s summary judgment motion, the district court reconsidered and granted summary judgment in favor of Meijer in light of a perceived change in controlling case law. McMullen appeals the grant of summary judgment in favor of Meijer and also the denial of her summary judgment motion. We reverse both rulings because we find that Meijer’s exclusive control over the pool of potential arbitrators prevents McMullen from effectively vindicating her statutory rights. However, we also find that an issue remains as to whether the arbitrator-selection provision can be severed from the rest of the arbitration agreement. Therefore, we remand to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
I.
In 1989, Meijer hired McMullen as a store detective at its store in Flint, Michigan. McMullen faced discipline in 1998 for an incident involving her pursuit and confrontation of a juvenile shoplifter in the store parking lot. Meijer offered McMul-len a choice between demotion with a 33% decrease in salary, or outright termination. McMullen chose termination and decided to challenge her discipline through Mei-jer’s termination appeal procedure (TAP).
The terms of the TAP establish a two-step procedure requiring binding arbitration of all disputes arising out of termination of employment. The TAP expressly incorporates the Employment Dispute Resolution Rules of the American Arbitration Association (AAA). 1 Further, the TAP specifically asserts that:
This procedure is intended to be the sole and exclusive remedy and forum for all claims arising out of or relating to an *488 eligible team member’s termination from employment.
The decision and award of the arbitrator is final and binding between the parties as to all claims arising out of or relating to an [sic] team member’s termination from employment which were or could have been raised at any step in this procedure and judgment may be entered on the award in any circuit court or other court of competent jurisdiction.
Contemporaneous to hiring McMullen, Meijer had provided her with a copy of an employee handbook describing both the TAP and the company’s policy of terminating employees only with “just cause.” McMullen had then signed a form acknowledging receipt of the handbook and assenting to the company’s policies and procedures.
Upon instituting termination appeal proceedings, McMullen argued that her discharge had been motivated by an intent to discriminate against her on the basis of her gender. Meijer denied her appeal internally and informed her that, “[i]f you would like to contest the results of this further review, you must request an arbitration hearing....” Subsequently, McMullen signed and filed the necessary paperwork to begin the arbitral process.
Once an arbitration hearing is requested, the TAP grants Meijer the right to unilaterally select a pool of at least five potential arbitrators, each of whom must be: (1) an attorney, (2) unemployed by and unaffiliated with the company, (3) generally recognized as a neutral and experienced labor and employment arbitrator, and (4) listed on the rosters of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) or the AAA, as well as other arbitration rosters. 2 Then, counsel for the company and the aggrieved employee mutually select an arbitrator from that pool by alternatively striking names until only one remains. On August 20, 1998, counsel for McMullen and Meijer, following this procedure, selected arbitrator William Daniel to hear McMul-len’s appeal. 3
Several months later, and only one day prior to the scheduled date of the arbitration hearing, McMullen filed this declaratory judgment action in state court challenging the fairness of the TAP’s arbitrator-selection process. Asserting federal question jurisdiction, Meijer removed the action to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
On December 13, 1999, Meijer brought a motion to compel arbitration and for summary judgment. On March 23, 2000, the district court denied both motions from the bench. The court’s ruling indicated that the procedures used by Meijer to select an arbitrator did not comport with the requisite level of fairness for such mandatory-arbitration contracts to be binding. In conjunction with its decision, the court criticized the extent of control exercised by Meijer over the arbitral panel. The court also stated, “I’m sorry that there were not cross motions in the case. There weren’t, so we’ll still have this case alive here.”
On September 21, 2000, McMullen moved for summary judgment. On October 2, 2000, Meijer moved for reconsideration of its earlier motions based on this court’s intervening decision in
Haskins v.
*489
Prudential Insurance Company of America,
II.
The district court’s decision to grant Meijer’s motion for summary judgment is reviewed
de novo, Smith v. Ameritech,
The Supreme Court has held that agreements to arbitrate employment disputes as a condition of employment are generally enforceable under the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. § 1
et seq.
(FAA).
Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams,
*490
Notwithstanding a general policy favoring such agreements, there are circumstances under which courts will not enforce pre-dispute mandatory arbitration agreements with regard to statutory employment discrimination claims. In
Floss,
we held that, “even if arbitration is generally a suitable forum for resolving a particular statutory claim, the specific arbitral forum provided under an arbitration agreement must nevertheless allow for the effective vindication of that claim.”
Floss,
Before reaching this central issue, however, we must address two preliminary arguments made by Meijer. First, Meijer argues that, regardless of the viability of the pre-dispute agreement, McMullen should be compelled to arbitrate her claims because she voluntarily and knowingly agreed to arbitration after the dispute had occurred. When Meijer internally reviewed McMullen’s claim after her termination, it issued a “results of review” statement on a Meijer “Termination Appeal Form.” The form states that to challenge the termination, an employee must request arbitration. Part 3 of the form states, “I request that my case be submitted to arbitration in accordance with the Company’s Termination Appeal Procedure.”' Beneath this statement, the form is signed solely by Wendy McMullen.
McMullen did not agree to waive any right to sue by signing this form. The form was merely an administrative step required to initiate the arbitration process that McMullen agreed to upon her hire. The form itself does not constitute an arbitration agreement because it contains no promise not to sue on behalf of either party. Moreover, the form does not constitute an enforceable agreement because it lacks contractual consideration. It is an elemental tenet of Michigan contract law, which applies here, that past consideration cannot serve as legal consideration for a subsequent promise.
Shirey v. Camden,
Meijer’s' second preliminary argument is that our decision in
Haskins
prevents us from considering whether a pre-dispute arbitration agreement allows for the effective vindication of statutory claims. Meijer notes that we decided
Has-kins
after we decided
Floss.
In
Haskins,
this court held that “absent a showing of fraud, duress, mistake, or some other ground upon which a contract may be voided, a court must enforce a contractual agreement to arbitrate.”
Haskins,
The district court’s ruling, however, overstates the impact of
Haskins
on the agreement signed by McMullen. In
Has-
*491
kins,
the plaintiff signed an agreement with a securities dealers’ association binding him to arbitrate any disputes arising with his employer. The plaintiffs challenge to the agreement focused on his ignorance as to the existence of the mandatory arbitration agreement, rather than on any perceived unfairness in the arbitration process.
Haskins,
In arguing that McMullen can only escape arbitration by showing fraud, mistake, or duress, Meijer ignores the remaining portion of the holding in
Haskins,
where this court made an allowance for “some other ground upon which a contract may be voided.”
Haskins,
For example, in Cooper, the court extensively discussed Haskins in the course of assessing the validity of a pre-dispute agreement to arbitrate signed by a restaurant employee. In so doing, the court essentially divided the Haskins analysis into two separate stages. First, it undertook the Haskins contractual analysis that Meijer promotes in the instant appeal as the only means for invalidating such an agreement. Secondly, contrary to the position Meijer espouses, the court held that:
Even if this Court found no contractual defenses to the enforcement of the [arbitration agreement], Plaintiffs substantive rights are affected by the agreement. Courts have recognized that, although arbitration agreements are generally favored, they will not be enforced if they affect an individual’s substantive rights. Gilmer,500 U.S. at 28 ,111 S.Ct. 1647 ,114 L.Ed.2d 26 . Where an individual is unable to vindicate his or her rights because of an obstacle erected by an arbitration agreement, the court may not enforce that arbitration agreement.
Cooper,
Furthermore, even if Meijer’s interpretation of
Haskins
were correct,
Haskins
has been superseded by our
en banc
deei
*492
sion in
Morrison v. Circuit City Stores, Inc.,
Therefore, we must decide whether Meijer’s TAP provides McMullen with an effective substitute for the judicial forum to pursue her Title VII claims. The TAP adopted by Meijer is commendably fair except in one important respect: it grants Meijer unilateral control over the pool of potential arbitrators.
McMullen relies heavily on
Hooters of America v. Phillips,
Many of the arbitration procedures criticized by the Fourth Circuit in
Hooters
were patently one-sided. For example, the arbitration agreement at issue in
Hooters
required employees to file a notice of the particulars of their claims, as well as a list of all fact witnesses along with a summary of their knowledge, while the company was required to do neither.
Hooters,
Moreover, the selection process in
Hooters
“[was] crafted to ensure a biased deci-sionmaker.”
Hooters,
The employee and Hooters each select an arbitrator, and the two arbitrators in turn select a third. Good enough, except that the employee’s arbitrator and the third arbitrator must be selected from a list of arbitrators created exclusively by Hooters. This gives Hooters control over the entire panel and places no limits whatsoever on whom Hooters can put on the list. Under the rules, Hooters is free to devise lists of partial arbitrators who have existing relationships, financial or familial, with Hooters and its management. In fact, the rules do not even prohibit Hooters from placing its managers themselves on the list.
Id. at 938-39. ■
In addition to
Hooters,
McMullen cites our opinion in
Floss
in support of her argument that Meijer’s TAP should not be enforced in this case. In
Floss,
this court invalidated an arbitration agreement that gave a third-party arbitration service, EDSI, complete discretion over the procedures and rules to be used during arbitration hearings.
Floss,
Our opinion in Floss also criticized, albeit in dicta, the fairness of EDSI’s arbitrator-selection process. Under EDSI’s rules, three “adjudicators” were selected from three separate selection pools to preside over the arbitration hearing. The first of these pools consisted of supervisors and managers from another EDSI signatory company; the second consisted of employees from another signatory; and the third contained attorneys, retired judges, and other “competent professional persons.” Id. at 313-14 n. 7. As described by the Floss court:
The selection process begins with EDSI furnishing both parties a list of potential adjudicators organized according to each selection pool. Information regarding each adjudicator’s recent employment history and related biographical information is provided to the parties along with this list. The parties may then move to strike any adjudicator for cause. Following the removal of any adjudicators for cause, the parties each strike a name from the list until only one name remains from each selection pool.
Id.
Although this process appears facially reasonable, we expressed our “serious reservations as to whether the arbitral forum provided under the current version of the EDSI Rules and Procedures is suitable for the resolution of statutory claims.”
Id.
at 314. Specifically, we observed that “the neutrality of the forum is far from clear in light of the uncertain relationship between [the employer] and EDSI.”
Id.
The record did not reflect whether EDSI, in contrast to the AAA, was a for-profit entity, but we questioned whether an alleged financial relationship between the employer company and EDSI, compounded by the latter’s pecuniary interest in retaining its arbitration service contract, might foster bias in favor of the employer client. Most significantly to the present case, we found in
Floss
that “[i]n light of EDSI’s role in determining the pool of potential arbitrators, any such bias would render the arbitral forum fundamentally unfair.”
Id.
(citing
Cole v. Burns Int’l Sec. Servs.,
Meijer’s TAP is plainly more even-handed than the arbitration agreement at issue in Hooters, which allowed for unfettered employer control over the potential arbi-tral panel and contained a myriad of unilaterally biased clauses and rules, giving Hooters an advantage in every aspect of the arbitration. But the arbitrator-selection process provided for under Meijer’s TAP is less fair than the arbitrator-selection process described in Floss as “fundamentally unfair.” Id. In Floss, a third-party company had exclusive control over the pool of potential arbitrators, while in the present case the employer has exclusive control over the selection pool. The Floss court was concerned that the company that selected the pool of potential arbitrators might be biased in favor of the employer, while here the company that selects the pool of potential arbitrators is the employer.
The type of control exercised by Meijer over the potential arbitrators is analogous to the “exclusive[ ] ... control over the entire panel” exercised by the employer in
Hooters
and rejected by the Fourth Circuit.
Hooters,
Meijer argues that the bias which McMullen fears will manifest itself during her arbitration hearing is, at this point, merely
potential
bias. This is not an insignificant argument. The Supreme Court, when presented with an allegation of hypothetical bias, “decline[d] to indulge the presumption that the parties and arbi-tral body conducting a proceeding will be unable or unwilling to retain competent, conscientious and impartial arbitrators.”
Gilmer,
McMullen’s complaint here, however, goes beyond an allegation of a potentially biased arbitrator because McMullen cites a lack of fairness inherent in the arbitrator-selection process. The Supreme Court in Gilmer recognized that fair and impartial “arbitration rules ... provide protections against biased panels.” Id. Meijer’s TAP contains many of the rules acclaimed by Gilmer for their ability to guard against potential arbitral bias, but unlike the rules considered in Gilmer, Meijer’s TAP grants one party to the arbitration unilateral control over the pool of potential arbitrators. This procedure prevents Meijer’s TAP from being an effective' substitute for a judicial forum because it inherently, lacks neutrality. 7
Our conclusion that Meijer’s TAP is not an effective substitute for a judicial forum dictates that McMullen’s Title YII claims are not subject to the TAP arbitrator-selection provision. The question remains whether Meijer’s TAP is thus unenforceable in its entirety or whether the selection procedure can be severed and replaced with an appropriate equitable process.
The parties’ appellate briefs do not address the issue of whether invalidation of the arbitrator-selection provision renders the TAP unenforceable in its entirety. Meijer raised the issue in a petition for rehearing filed after this court’s original opinion declared the entire agreement unenforceable, and McMullen has responded to the petition. Meijer concedes that the TAP lacks a severability clause. It argues, however, that the parties’ intent governs the issue of severability and urges us to find that the TAP’s incorporation of the Employment Dispute Rules of the AAA
*495
evidences an intent to have an arbitrator selected in accord with the AAA’s rule providing for selection of an arbitrator from its list when the parties’ agreement does not include an arbitrator-selection method. Alternatively, it urges us to direct the district court to appoint an arbitrator in accord with the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) procedure specified in 9 U.S.C. § 5. Finally, Meijer relies on
Chattanooga Mailers’ Union, No. 92 v. Chattanooga News-Free Press Co.,
McMullen responds that the TAP’s specific exclusion of AAA administration of any arbitration under the TAP negates any inference that the parties intended application of AAA’s arbitrator selection rule. She also asserts that
Chattanooga Mailers’ Union
is factually dissimilar to this case. She cites
NLRB v. Rockaway News Supply Co.,
In determining whether the TAP should be enforced absent the invalid arbitrator-selection mechanism and, if it should, how to select an arbitrator, the parties’ intent is a primary issue.
See generally Morrison,
Here, the parties did not raise any factual issues involving their intent before the district court and, indeed, did not address *496 the legal issues surrounding severability at any time until Meijer’s petition for rehearing was filed. Under these circumstances, we find it appropriate to remand to the district court so that it can determine in the first instance, after full briefing and development of any necessary additional record, whether the TAP can be enforced without the impermissible arbitrator-selection provision. If the district court decides that the remainder of the agreement can be enforced, it will also have to determine how an arbitrator should be selected.
III.
For all of these reasons, we reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Meijer and the district court’s denial of summary judgment to McMullen. We remand the case to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Notes
. The American Arbitration Association, a non-profit public service organization, assists in the design of alternative dispute resolution systems for corporations, unions, government agencies, law firms and the courts.
. At the time McMullen initiated the TAP process, Meijer maintained a standing panel of potential arbitrators that it used for every arbitration in which it participated in the state of Michigan.
. As a member of Meijer's standing panel of potential arbitrators in Michigan, Daniel had served as the arbitrator in seven arbitrations involving Meijer by the time McMullen initiated the TAP process.
. The district judge’s decisions on the motions for summary judgment consisted of brief oral rulings from the bench, rather than written opinions. With regard to the propriety of issuing oral rulings on summary judgment motions, unaccompanied by written findings, this court previously has noted:
This reviewing court, and more importantly, the parties, are much better served when, as is the custom in this circuit, the district court prepares a written opinion explaining its ruling and the reasoning, factual and legal, in support, especially when the ruling disposes of the case in a final judgment.
Peck v. Bridgeport Machines, Inc.,
. The “effective vindication” test referenced in
Floss
derives from
Gilmer,
where the Supreme Court proclaimed, ”[S]o long as the prospective litigant effectively may vindicate [his or her] statutory cause of action in the arbitral forum, the statute will continue to serve both its remedial and deterrent function."
Gilmer,
. Although the
Rembert
decision predated
Haskins,
it did not predate
Beauchamp v. Great West Life Assurance Co.,
. Meijer also argues that
Gilmer
clearly establishes that the preferred method of challenging allegations of bias is to pursue the underlying claims through the arbitration process and then seek review only “[wjhere there was evident partiality or corruption in the arbitrators.”
Gilmer,