Read the following excerpt from a US court opinion:
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without inference or presumption.” Brown v. E. Miss. Elec. Power Ass’n, 989 F.2d 858, 861 (5th Cir.1993) (emphasis added). For example, we have held that a job interviewer’s statement that the plaintiffs age caused him concern was not direct evidence of discrimination in the employer’s decision not to hire the plaintiff. Haas v. ADVO Sys., Inc., 168 F.3d 732, 733-34 (5th Cir.1999). Although the interviewer’s remarks were neither vague nor remote in time — and despite a reasonable inference that the interviewer had influenced the employer’s hiring preferences — we nevertheless noted that an additional inference was required before we could conclude that the decisionmaker himself chose not to hire the plaintiff based on age discrimination. Id. at 734; cf. Fierros, 274 F.3d at 195 . In the context of TxDOT’s motion for summary
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What is the most suitable continuation to the opinion? Your options are:
A. holding that plaintiff was not similarly situated to another employee who also engaged in protected activity for purposes of plaintiffs retaliation claim
B. holding that a plaintiff could not show that she engaged in protected activity because she did not present evidence that she informed her employer that her complaints were based on race or age discrimination
C. holding that a decisionmakers own statement  that the plaintiff would not receive a pay increase because she engaged in protected activity  is direct evidence of discrimination
D. holding that a plaintiffs retaliation claim is cognizable even in the absence of protected activity as long as his employer perceived him to be engaged in such activity
E. recognizing that plaintiff undoubtedly engaged in a protected activity when he contacted the eeoc alleging discrimination
Reply with [A, B, C, D, E] only.