530
Souter, J., dissenting
all, to rule in favor of the employer.3 Id., at 258; see id., at 255, n. 9 ("An articulation not admitted into evidence will not suffice").
Once the employer chooses the battleground in this manner, "the factual inquiry proceeds to a new level of specificity." Id., at 255. During this final, more specific enquiry, the employer has no burden to prove that its proffered reasons are true; rather, the plaintiff must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the proffered reasons are pre-textual.4 Id., at 256. McDonnell Douglas makes it clear that if the plaintiff fails to show "pretext," the challenged employment action "must stand." 411 U. S., at 807. If, on the other hand, the plaintiff carries his burden of showing "pretext," the court "must order a prompt and appropriate remedy." 5 Ibid. Or, as we said in Burdine: "[The plaintiff]
3 The majority is simply wrong when it suggests that my reading of McDonnell Douglas and Burdine proceeds on the assumption that the employer's reasons must be stated "apart from the record." Ante, at 522 (emphasis omitted). As I mentioned above, and I repeat here, such reasons must be set forth "through the introduction of admissible evidence." Supra, at 529; see Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U. S. 248, 255 (1981). Such reasons cannot simply be found "lurking in the record," as the Court suggests, ante, at 523, for Burdine requires the employer to articulate its reasons through testimony or other admissible evidence that is "clear and reasonably specific," 450 U. S., at 258. Accordingly, the plaintiff need not worry about waiting for the court to identify the employer's reasons at the end of trial, or in this case six months after trial, because McDonnell Douglas and Burdine require the employer to articulate its reasons clearly during trial. No one, for example, had any trouble in this case identifying the two reasons for Hicks's dismissal that St. Mary's articulated during trial.
4 We clarified this aspect of the McDonnell Douglas framework in Bur-dine, where the question presented was "whether, after the plaintiff has proved a prima facie case of discriminatory treatment, the burden shifts to the defendant to persuade the court by a preponderance of the evidence that legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for the challenged employment action existed." 450 U. S., at 250.
5 The Court makes a halfhearted attempt to rewrite these passages from McDonnell Douglas, arguing that "pretext for discrimination" should appear where "pretext" actually does. Ante, at 516, and n. 6. I seriously
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