Obituaries
Please alert us to the recent death of any other Rhodes Scholar by emailing communications@rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk.
Richard Fallon Jr was born in Augusta, Maine on 4 January 1952. On graduating from Cony High School in Augusta in 1970, he joined Yale University for his BA in History, which he earned in 1975. Richard arrived at Wadham College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar in 1975 to read for his BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He then attended Yale Law School 1977-80. Before entering teaching, Richard served as a law clerk to Judge J. Skelly Wright and to Justice Lewis F. Powell of the United States Supreme Court.
Richard was a pillar of Harvard Law School since joining the faculty as an assistant professor in 1982, was promoted to full professor in 1987, and was the Story Professor of Law and an Affiliate Professor in the Government Department.
Internationally recognized as a leading scholar of constitutional law, constitutional interpretation, and legal philosophy, he authored dozens of important works in these fields, and just recently completed his latest book, The Changing Constitution. He also served as co-author on leading casebooks and treatises, including Hart and Wechsler’s The Federal Courts and the Federal System. Colleagues around the world benefitted from his engagement with them at workshops and conferences, and particularly his generosity in providing lucid and detailed comments on their work.
He was a beloved teacher, having twice won the Sacks-Freund Award. He also regularly taught a highly popular course on American Constitutional Law for students in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Over his many decades in the classroom, he modelled excellence, curiosity, respect, and humility for his students, which is why so many of them remain devoted to him even decades after graduating.
Although Richard was serious about his work, he managed not to take himself too seriously. He expected a lot of himself and those around him, yet was also eager to listen to, and learn from, others. Even amidst earnest discussions, his wry sense of humour would often make a quiet appearance.
Read full obituary here.
Read a tribute by Joel K. Goldstein (Missouri and Brasenose ’75) for the American Oxonian here.
We were saddened to learn of the passing of Carlton Ray Stoiber.
Born in 1942 in Vallejo, California, Carlton attended Boulder High School before studying at the University of Colorado. He earned his BA in 1964 and then went on to St John’s College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, where he read philosophy, politics and economics. His early leadership was evident as International Vice-President of the National Student Association in Washington, DC, followed by a role as a trainee correspondent at Time Magazine.
Carlton furthered his education at the University of Colorado Law School, receiving his JD in 1969. He began a distinguished career in public service as an attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice. His expertise led him to serve as Deputy General Counsel at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and later as Assistant General Counsel at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. He held pivotal positions within the Department of State, including Director of the Office of Nuclear Export and Import Control and Director of the Office of Nuclear Technology and Safeguards, as well as Counsellor for Nuclear Policy at the US Mission to the United Nations in Austria.
Carlton's lifelong commitment to law, public service, and international security was widely recognized, and he leaves behind a legacy of integrity and dedication.
James Daniel O'Flaherty served as a public policy figure at think tanks and on the U.S. Senate staff, and was an expert on South Africa and U.S. foreign trade.
Dan was born in Chicago on November 4,1942 to James C. O'Flaherty, a scholar of German philosophy and history at Wake Forest University, and Lucy Maupin Ribble, an accomplished painter. He grew up in Winston Salem, NC.
Dan won a scholarship to Williams College, Massachusetts, majoring in government and history, later serving on its board. He arrived at Oxford in 1965 as a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College, later earning a doctorate at Harvard and teaching for a year at The University of the South at Sewanee.
He was recruited by Senator Frank Church as a senior research analyst. Dan contributed to the Church Report on democratic reforms to U.S. intelligence agencies. His work on Capitol Hill led to an appointment at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in NYC, as a senior fellow specializing in national economics with a concentration on Wall Street, and then to a position at The Group of 30, focusing on international monetary and economic policy.
Dan served as Vice President of the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) in D.C., while also directing the U.S.-South Africa Business Council. His work included U.S.-China trade relations, Vietnam normalization, and commercial relations with the former Soviet Union. Dan was a key figure in the Rhodes Scholar Alumni Association, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of The Cosmos Club.
Read full obituary here.
It is with great sadness that we mark the passing of the Honourable Gérard Vincent La Forest, former Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.
Born in Grand Falls, New Brunswick in 1926, Justice La Forest went to the University of New Brunswick to study law and graduated with his BCL in 1949. He was called to the bar of New Brunswick shortly after, and named a King’s Counsel in 1968. Awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, he continued his studies at Oxford University, where he earned a BA in Jurisprudence in 1951 and an MA in 1956. He also completed an LLM in 1965 and a JSD in 1966, both at Yale University.
Following a short period in private practice, Gérard served in the federal Department of Justice before embarking on a teaching career, notably as Dean of Law at the University of Alberta. He returned to government in 1970, serving as Assistant Deputy Attorney General of Canada until 1974 and later a member of the Law Reform Commission of Canada for five years.
Justice La Forest was appointed directly to the New Brunswick Court of Appeal in 1981 and elevated to the Supreme Court of Canada on January 16, 1985. He served on the Supreme Court for more than 12 years, retiring on September 30, 1997.
“My colleagues and I mourn the loss of Justice La Forest — an exemplary jurist whose compassion deeply informed the Court’s decisions on issues that touched the lives of all Canadians,” said the Chief Justice of Canada, the Right Honourable Richard Wagner, P.C. “As a distinguished appellate judge, legal scholar and public servant, he brought unmatched intellect and experience to the Supreme Court of Canada. His eloquent judgments, spanning many areas of the law, have left a profound and enduring legacy in Canadian jurisprudence. He will be remembered with great respect and admiration.”
Read full obituary here.
It is with great sadness that we mark the passing of Bruce Stewart KC, who passed away peacefully after courageously facing a long and debilitating period of illness.
A New Zealander, he came up to Oriel in 1975 as a Rhodes Scholar to read for a BCL. During his 2 years at Oxford, he played rugby and squash for the college, as well as playing cricket for OUCC and the Authentics, although he never got a Blue.
Upon successfully being awarded his BCL, he returned to Auckland to pursue a career in law. Bruce was a brilliant legal mind, and was widely respected and admired for his deep love for the law.
Read full obituary here.
It is with great sadness that we have learned of the passing of Neil Huxter, at the age of 91.
Born in Bombay, Neil studied at Diocesan College and subsequently University of Cape Town. He arrived at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar in 1955 to study English, and was a writer by profession.
We were deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Anthony Gibbs, literary critic and biographer.
Born in 1933, Tony, who published as A.M. Gibbs, grew up in Ballarat, Victoria, and developed an early love for literature amid a vibrant family life shaped by stories of his father's service at Gallipoli. He excelled at Ballarat Grammar, and after a distinguished undergraduate career at the University of Melbourne—where he was celebrated for his intellect, drama, and athleticism—Tony was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship in 1956.
At Oxford, Tony furthered his studies in English and completed a thesis on Sir William Davenant, marking the beginning of a lifelong fascination with seventeenth-century literature. His academic journey included appointments at the Universities of Adelaide, Leeds, and Stirling, before leading the Department of English at the University of Newcastle and later joining Macquarie University, where he became Emeritus Professor.
Over decades, Tony established himself internationally as a leading authority on George Bernard Shaw, with landmark publications such as George Bernard Shaw: A Life, and was recognized for his service to the humanities with election as Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the award of a Commonwealth Centenary Medal. Tony’s enduring legacy lies in his wide-ranging scholarship—from Davenant and Shakespeare to Yeats and Shaw—his editorial work, and his mentorship of countless students.
Read full obituary here.
We were saddened to hear that Bryan died on 23 May at the age of 68, surrounded by his family, wife Joanne, four daughters and their partners, and one grandson.
After graduating from the Luther College at the University of Regina in 1978 as the first student in Religious Studies, Bryan arrived at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar in 1979. He returned to Luther College as a professor in 1989 and was appointed Dean in 1995, a role he served until 2005. He later became President in 2010, a role he served until 2020. Bryan’s vocation always went beyond the job title, no matter which one he held.
Bryan served his community with unwavering energy and leadership, and he will be missed deeply.
We were grieved to hear that Leslie Epstein died in Brookline, Massachusetts at the age of 87.
Born in Los Angeles to a family of film makers, Leslie left California for an undergraduate degree at Yale. He arrived at Oxford in 1960 to study Anthropology. Initially aspiring to write plays, he later pursued Theatre Arts at the University of California in Los Angeles and eventually returned to Yale for his doctorate in Playwriting.
He published thirteen works of fiction, along with reviews and essays in the Globe, the Times, and many other publications. His best known novel, King of the Jews, has become a classic of Holocaust Fiction that has been published in eleven foreign languages. His teaching career, meanwhile, was often the more prominent role to many who knew him. He began teaching in New York at Queens College, where he met Ilene Gradman, whom he married in 1969.
He was the director of the Creative Writing Program at Boston University for thirty-six years, mentoring several prize-winning authors. He had a rare gift for spotting a story’s flaws and guiding writers he mentored through “that mystery of taking what you had put together and making it stand on its own two feet,” said Jhumpa Lahiri, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who had studied with him at BU. “He could diagnose a weakness in a way that, honestly, felt miraculous, and I don’t use that word lightly,” she said. “That’s the kind of lesson that lasts you for your whole life. Because of that, he will remain my teacher for as long as I live and as long as I write.”
Leslie augmented his writing critiques by playing Bach concerto recordings in his classroom, assigning students to watch Ingmar Bergman movies on weekends, and suggesting museum visits to strengthen their artistic foundations. “He was a terrific observer of the world and his mind was always churning,” said his son Theo, who added that those closest to his father sometimes noticed a hint of a smile as a thought formed. “He was delighting himself and couldn’t wait to share it, and then he’d find just the right words that either cracked up the room or made people think in a new way, and quite often elevated their world.”
Read full obituary here.