Localities in the interior of South Africa, such as Taung and Vaal River sites, were intensively researched after hominins were discovered (Péringuey, 1911; Dart, 1925a; Goodwin, 1928), but then neglected for the fossil-rich, dolomitic breccia sites in Gauteng Province (e.g., Cooke, 1963, 1967; Vrba, 1976; Brain, 1981, Brain and Sillen, 1988; Bamford, 1999; Pickering and Kramers, 2010; Herries and Shaw, 2011; Reynolds et al., 2011; Lee-Thorp and Sponheimer, 2013). Recently, knowledge of the interior region has increased, following excavations at Florisbad (Brink, 1988; Kuman et al., 1999; Toffolo et al., 2015), Taung, including Equus Cave (Scott, 1987; Klein et al., 1991; McKee and Tobias, 1994; Lee-Thorp and Beaumont, 1995; Johnson et al., 1997; Hopley et al., 2013; McKee, 2016), Canteen Kopje (Beaumont, 1990, 2004; McNabb and Beaumont, 2011; Smith et al., 2012; Lotter et al., 2016), Pniel (Beaumont, 1990; Kunneriath and Gaillard, 2010; Hutson, 2018), Erfkroon (Churchill et al., 2000a; Brink et al., 2015a), Bundu Farm (Kiberd, 2006; Hutson, 2018), Cornelia (Brink et al., 2012; Toffolo et al., 2019) and the Kathu Complex (Porat et al., 2010; Wilkins and Chazan, 2012; Wilkins et al., 2012; Walker et al., 2014; Lukich et al., 2019, 2020).

Introduction

Martin Redish's contribution to this symposium, Freedom of Expression, Political Fraud, and the Dilemma of Anonymity, is a characteristically thought-provoking work. Redish's contribution is literally unsettling: it aims to raise doubts about the merits of anonymity as a First Amendment right, despite the seemingly well-established status of this right.

Professor Redish writes in a typically careful and thoughtful fashion, zeroing in on the danger posed by anonymous speech that is politically fraudulent – that is, anonymous speech that amounts to a “conscious effort to deceive the public solely for political or ideological purposes.” The danger, Redish writes, is that stripping the identity of the speaker from the speech prevents listeners from properly judging that speech and, in appropriate cases, disregarding it for reasons of bias, inaccuracy, and so forth. He writes that “[i]t is a reality of communication that who the speaker is will, in many instances, appropriately affect a listener's perception of and judgment about the expression.” Ultimately, he argues that the “abolition of the right of expressive anonymity is fully justified as a prophylactic means of deterring and diluting the serious First Amendment harms caused by political fraud.”

Professor Redish's contribution adds complexity to an area of First Amendment doctrine – the right to speak anonymously – that, as he notes, has received too little attention from mainstream First Amendment scholarship. This is a fair claim. Still, other bodies of legal scholarship have made useful contributions to at least some of the issues Redish raises.

Introduction

When and why do courts insist that the parties before them insist on “following the rules,” despite the evident frailty of those rules or the terrible consequences that following the rules might entail? Why should citizens follow what they, and we, might conclude are patently bad laws – and why should courts insist that they do?

This is an age-old jurisprudential question, of course. It raises questions that have long been with us concerning the scope and legitimacy of civil disobedience, the nature of legal authority, and the proper relationship between law and morality. These questions are ultimately as intractable as they are fundamental.

In his contribution to this collection, Patrick Gudridge helpfully takes a narrower cut at some of these questions. He asks how we ought to think about “constitutional analysis framing contemplation of emergencies, crises, or other unruly events.” The overlap between that narrower question and the broader question when and why courts should insist on obedience to the law is considerable. Emergencies and other “unruly events” are often the moments at which the justification for departing from “orderly ways” is at its most compelling. These moments thus place in stark relief the immanent confl ict between doing the “right” thing and doing the “orderly” thing.

More specifically, Professor Gudridge presents us with what he suggests is an anomaly in Supreme Court jurisprudence. Although he builds on whole sequences of cases, he focuses on two in particular.