Prime Video’s Spy High asks a very important question: is it legally justifiable to disregard student data privacy under the pretense of protecting them? At times, due to certain cases, the judiciary has to venture into uncharted territory, and something similar happened in the case of Robbins v. Lower Merion School District. The Harriton High School was found guilty of taking pictures of students, using the laptops that were provided to them, without their consent. So let’s find out what happened in the case and if LMSD was held guilty by the court.
What was the webcam gate scandal?
In 2010, the vice principal of Lower Merion School District called the parents of one of the students, Blake Robbins, to inform them about what their son was up to. Apparently, the school administration had gotten hold of a picture where Blake was openly consuming pills. The administration had a reputation to maintain, and they were ready to take strict actions against students who were found violating the rules. But the moment Blake and his parents were called to the school, the first question that came to their mind was how the school had a picture of Blake sitting in his bedroom in the first place. Firstly, they believed that some friends might have sent it over to the school authorities, but that wasn’t what happened. That question led to the unfurling of a trove of secrets. It came to be known that when the school had given laptops to all the students to make them friendly with modern technology, a software named LANrev was installed on every system, through which the administration could remotely spy on all the students. The moment the kids opened their laptops, they could be seen by whoever was in charge of the software. This entire incident infamously came to be known as the Webcamgate scandal.
Blake’s family hired a lawyer named Mark Haltzman, and within days of filing the class action lawsuit, the news of LMSD being involved in such an act spread like wildfire through the entire nation. Blake’s family at that point in time had no clue that something like that could happen, and they too got overwhelmed by all the publicity they got. Some believed that the family was doing it for money and fame, and unfortunately, Blake had to bear the repercussions of it. He was bullied in school and called all sorts of names. Blake’s elder sister, Paige also had to go through the trauma of being bullied and it felt like she was made to pay for the actions of her family. The Robbins family appeared on a lot of popular talk shows at that time, and even if they liked the fame they got through it, it could not be denied that LMSD had done something illegal, and they were guilty of violating the privacy of the students.
Did LMSD discriminate against its students?
Obviously Blake Robbins was not the only one whose pictures had been clicked by the LMSD authorities. There were others like him who moved the court of law, seeking justice for what had happened to them. Keron Williams and Jalil Hasan also hired the same lawyer, Mark Haltzman, but somehow the school administration didn’t think that they needed to be compensated in the same manner as Robbins. Now, there were people in the neighborhood who accused the school administration of being discriminatory in their practices. We saw in the Spy High documentary how gentrification took place in the region, and how institutionalized discrimination had an impact on the lives of people of color. Where Blake Robbins got a compensation of $610,000, Jalil and Keron got somewhere around $10,000. When Mark Haltzman was asked about the discrepancy in the amount he said that at that point in time that amount was deemed fit, as unlike Blake Robbins, the others had not been through the cyberbullying and the harassment. But the fact was that Jalil and Keron were also victims of the crime, and they also went through what Blake did. Nobody ever got an answer about why Mark Haltzman agreed to such an amount when he was himself representing the interests of the families. In such cases, often the truth is out there in the open, but there are no means to prove it in a court of law. Everybody knew what the Black community went through, how they were made to feel inferior, how they were forced to live in a different neighborhood, and how, subconsciously, the fact that they didn’t deserve equal treatment was ingrained in their minds.
Why did Blake Robbins agree to a settlement?
It came as a shock to many when Blake Robbins, on the advice of Mark Haltzman, agreed to compensation. Some felt that they were right in thinking that the Robbins family was only doing it for the money, while some believed that Mark Haltzman, for his own benefit, had played the family. There were 56,000 photographs taken by the LMSD authorities, and settling for compensation, knowing the fact that the school would never be charged with any crime, meant that nobody would be held responsible for what had happened, and no criminal proceedings could be initiated against them. Few people even theorized that the school authorities kept explicit pictures of the students and the fact they wiped out the album further supported the idea that the administration too was at fault.
Out of the $610,000 compensation, around $425,000 went to Mark Haltzman, which, to an extent, made it clear why he would have pushed for a settlement rather than going to trial. Also after the settlement, even Paige wanted to file a lawsuit against the school as her life too had been adversely impacted. But before that could happen, Paige was so overwhelmed by the hostility and the reaction of the people, that she decided to not proceed with the trial. So in Robbins v. Lower Merion School District, from the vice principal Lindy Matsko to Mike Prebix, the network technician, everybody got a clean chit, and it could never be ascertained why the school was spying on kids and if there was any criminal intent behind it.
Where is Blake Robbins now?
After watching the Spy High documentary, I can safely presume that Jalil and Keron were the most affected by what had happened, and the irony was that the court and their lawyer felt that they were not worthy of the kind of compensation that Blake got. Keron faced serious mental health challenges, and it felt like he withdrew inside a shell, never to be the same lively person again. It took a lot of courage and determination on their end to stand up on their feet once again and start from scratch.
Jalil attended community college and lives in Philadelphia. He is pursuing a career in rap under the pseudonym Mrkhuul. Keron too transferred to a community college eventually, and his interest in music led him to become a part-time DJ. Keron also works as a refuse collector in Lower Merion Township. Mike and Holly, Blake Robbins’ parents, moved to Florida, as they just wanted to get away from the harassment they had to face on an everyday basis. They were called all sorts of names, as the community had made up their mind that it was their greed that led them to file a case against the school, and they pretended as if they really cared about what their son went through. Blake, who is quite active on social media, went to Los Angeles and never returned to Lower Merion. Blake used his compensation money to make connections, because of which he ended up working as a creative producer on many projects and managing many celebrity clients.
