Oxfordian of the Year award presented to Justice Stevens

Melissa Dell'Orto, Thomas Regnier, Justice John Paul Stevens, Alex McNeil, and Michael Pisapia -- November 12, 2009, Washington DC. Credit: Photo by Steve Petteway, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Alex McNeil and Matthew Cossolotto report on presentation of Oxfordian of the Year award to Justice John Paul Stevens:

The Shakespeare Fellowship and the Shakespeare Oxford Society awarded the 2009 “Oxfordian of the Year Award” to John Paul Stevens, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  Justice Stevens has long doubted whether William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon is the real Bard.

The award was conferred jointly by the Shakespeare Fellowship and the Shakespeare Oxford Society, the two leading American organizations that promote the case for Edward de Vere, seventeenth Earl of Oxford, as the true author of the works attributed to Shakespeare.

On November 12, 2009, representatives of the two groups – Alex McNeil, Thomas Regnier, Michael Pisapia, and Melissa Dell’Orto – traveled to Washington, DC, where they presented a plaque to Justice Stevens, recognizing him for his interest in and support of the Oxfordian thesis.

Appointed to the high court by President Ford in 1975, Justice Stevens has been interested in the Shakespeare authorship problem since 1987, when he participated in a moot court on the topic at American University. In an article published by The Wall Street Journal April 18, 2009: “Justice Stevens Renders an Opinion on Who Wrote Shakespeare’s Plays”, Justice Stevens expressed his view that “the evidence that (Shakespeare of Stratford) was not the author is beyond a reasonable doubt.”