536
Souter, J., dissenting
articulated reasons are unworthy of credence. Cf. Carter v. Duncan-Huggins, Ltd., 234 U. S. App. D. C. 126, 146, 727 F. 2d 1225, 1245 (1984) (Scalia, J., dissenting) ("[I]n order to get to the jury the plaintiff would . . . have to introduce some evidence . . . that the basis for [the] discriminatory treatment was race") (emphasis in original). See generally Lanctot, The Defendant Lies and the Plaintiff Loses: The Fallacy of the "Pretext-Plus" Rule in Employment Discrimination Cases, 43 Hastings L. J. 57 (1991) (criticizing the "pretext-plus" approach).
The Court fails to explain, moreover, under either interpretation of its holding, why proof that the employer's articulated reasons are "unpersuasive, or even obviously contrived," ante, at 524, falls short. Under McDonnell Douglas and Burdine, there would be no reason in this situation to question discriminatory intent. The plaintiff has raised an inference of discrimination (though no longer a presumption) through proof of his prima facie case, and as we noted in Burdine, this circumstantial proof of discrimination can also be used by the plaintiff to show pretext. 450 U. S., at 255, n. 10. Such proof is merely strengthened by showing, through use of further evidence, that the employer's articulated reasons are false, since "common experience" tells us that it is "more likely than not" that the employer who lies is simply trying to cover up the illegality alleged by the plaintiff. Furnco, 438 U. S., at 577. Unless McDonnell Douglas's command to structure and limit the case as the employer chooses is to be rendered meaningless, we should not look beyond the employer's lie by assuming the possible existence of other reasons the employer might have proffered without lying. By telling the factfinder to keep digging in cases where the plaintiff's proof of pretext turns on showing the employer's reasons to be unworthy of credence, the majority rejects the very point of the McDonnell Douglas rule requiring the scope of the factual enquiry to be lim-
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