The Philadelphia Bar Association has announced that Mark Franek '13 has won the Ruth Bader Ginsburg "In Pursuit of Justice" writing competition with his essay, "Bending Toward Justice: Why Plaintiffs Deserve a Mixed-Motives Cause of Action for Retaliation under Title VII."  In the essay, Mark makes the case for Congressional expansion of the mixed-motives framework to explicitly cover retaliation and to arm the framework with some form of required economic recovery for plaintiffs and for plaintiff's counsel, once liability is established.

Mark, who is currently a member of the Temple Law Review, explains that the impetus for the paper actually predates his admission to law school: "When I was thinking about applying to law school, several years ago, I watched my wife argue a pre-trial motion [in a mixed-motives case] before a federal judge and I was blown away by the whole experience…. There I was, an educator, with over 15 years of experience in some of Philly's best independent high schools and universities, and I was completely in the dark about the whole conversation."

Now in his final year of law school, Mark has gone from being in the dark to "knowing more about the mixed-motives framework than the lawyers who were in the courtroom that day."  He credits the faculty at TempleLaw with not just helping him to explore the law but with holding him "accountable to the highest standards" in his research and writing.

The Ruth Bader Ginsburg writing competition is open to 2L and 3L students at six Philadelphia-area law schools: Drexel University, University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers University, Temple University, Villanova University, and Widener University. Temple Law students have won the competition for the past six years and for eight of the past ten.