Cite as: 509 U. S. 502 (1993)
Souter, J., dissenting
ited, albeit in a manner chosen by the employer. What is more, the Court is throwing out the rule for the benefit of employers who have been found to have given false evidence in a court of law. There is simply no justification for favoring these employers by exempting them from responsibility for lies.11 It may indeed be true that such employers have nondiscriminatory reasons for their actions, but ones so shameful that they wish to conceal them. One can understand human frailty and the natural desire to conceal it, however, without finding in it a justification to dispense with an orderly procedure for getting at "the elusive factual question of intentional discrimination." Burdine, 450 U. S., at 255, n. 8.
With no justification in the employer's favor, the consequences to actual and potential Title VII litigants stand out sharply. To the extent that workers like Melvin Hicks decide not to sue, given the uncertainties they would face under the majority's scheme, the legislative purpose in adopting Title VII will be frustrated. To the extent such workers nevertheless decide to press forward, the result will likely be wasted time, effort, and money for all concerned. Under the scheme announced today, any conceivable explanation for the employer's actions that might be suggested by the evidence, however unrelated to the employer's articulated reasons, must be addressed by a plaintiff who does not
11 Although the majority chides me for referring to employers who offer false evidence in court as "liars," see ante, at 520, it was the first to place such employers in the company of perjurers, see ante, at 522. In any event, it is hardly "absurd" to say that an individual is lying when the factfinder does not believe his testimony, whether he is testifying on his own behalf or as the agent of a corporation. Ante, at 520-521. Factfinders constantly must decide whether explanations offered in court are true, and when they conclude, by a preponderance of the evidence, that a proffered explanation is false, it is not unfair to call that explanation a lie. To label it "perjury," a criminal concept, would be jumping the gun, but only the majority has employed that term. See ante, at 520-522.
537
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