528
Souter, J., dissenting
ation of impermissible factors." Furnco, 438 U. S., at 577; see also Burdine, supra, at 254.
Under McDonnell Douglas and Burdine, however, proof of a prima facie case not only raises an inference of discrimination; in the absence of further evidence, it also creates a mandatory presumption in favor of the plaintiff. 450 U. S., at 254, n. 7. Although the employer bears no trial burden at all until the plaintiff proves his prima facie case, once the plaintiff does so the employer must either respond or lose. As we made clear in Burdine, "[I]f the employer is silent in the face of the presumption, the court must enter judgment for the plaintiff." Id., at 254; see ante, at 510, n. 3 (in these circumstances, the factfinder "must find the existence of the presumed fact of unlawful discrimination and must, therefore, render a verdict for the plaintiff") (emphasis in original). Thus, if the employer remains silent because it acted for a reason it is too embarrassed to reveal, or for a reason it fails to discover, see ante, at 513, the plaintiff is entitled to judgment under Burdine.
Obviously, it would be unfair to bar an employer from coming forward at this stage with a nondiscriminatory explanation for its actions, since the lack of an open position and the plaintiff's lack of qualifications do not exhaust the set of nondiscriminatory reasons that might explain an adverse personnel decision. If the trier of fact could not consider other explanations, employers' autonomy would be curtailed far beyond what is needed to rectify the discrimination identified by Congress. Cf. Furnco, supra, at 577-578 (Title VII "does not impose a duty to adopt a hiring procedure that maximizes hiring of minority employees"). On the other hand, it would be equally unfair and utterly impractical to saddle the victims of discrimination with the burden of either producing direct evidence of discriminatory intent or eliminating the entire universe of possible nondiscriminatory reasons for a personnel decision. The Court in McDonnell Douglas reconciled these competing interests in a very sen-
Page: Index Previous 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007