Oprah Scandal pt. 2

In South Africa, 1 in 3 women will be raped in her lifetime, sometimes more than once. Is Oprah's Leadership Academy addressing the possible past traumas of its students and faculty and the need to educate around issues of abuse, power and sexual misconduct? Probably not. Time to add it to the curriculum.

It feels sensational and homophobic to report on "lesbian liaisons" at an all girls school, since that happens at Yeshivas in Brooklyn, summer camp, private schools in Connecticut and pretty much anywhere you segregate the sexes and have adolescents sleeping together. The issue is whether or not those encounters were consensual.

Oprah's school lands in sex scandal
31 Mar 2009, 1659 hrs IST, ANI


Seven students at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls now face suspension after being accused of sexually harassing their fellow pupils.

According to the newspaper Afrikaans on Sunday, a girl of 15 was found guilty of preying upon another student and forcing other girls to conceal the truth from investigators. Other girls were “caught fondling each other or trying to get other girls to join them in lesbian liaisons”. Lisa Halliday, Oprah's spokesperson, confirmed the suspension.

"It is because they contravened the school's code of conduct. We regard the incident as confidential," the New York Daily News quoted her as saying.

The incident comes nearly two years after a female school staffer was accused of physically and sexually abusing students in October 2007. On learning upon the sex charges, Oprah had then said: "I am a mama bear when it comes to protecting my children.

"These girls are like my children. That's not just rhetoric for me. I take their futures and the possibility for what their futures hold very seriously."