Kameron Hnath

9/19/18
PLCY 201

Position Paper - Oprah’s Leadership School For Girls

Distinctly a passion project, Oprah Winfrey started the Oprah Winfrey Leadership
Academy for Girls to help impoverished girls achieve the same rags to riches dream that she did.
Oprah’s 40 million dollar South African school has received as much praise for her her
generosity as it has criticism for its misguided lavishness. While her school might not be a
worthy investment, it is clear that Oprah’s goal was not to provide aid in the traditional sense.
This project was ultimately one of vanity, a way for Oprah to allows others to experience an
idealized version of her youthful growth and produce more people with similar ideals to herself.
Oprah’s project was not misguided or effective but instead her motives, which involve
developing a sense of prestige for students, molding them to her ideals, and creating a vanguard
elite of leaders in Africa, are misrepresented and misunderstood.

The lack of efficiency in the school was necessary in promoting its prestige. Oprah’s
words herself clearly show how she did not care for the efficiency of the project. On the question
of the cost of the project, she responded with “that’s fine. This is what I want to do” (11),
indicating that the lavishness of the school was intentional. Her goal was not to help kids in
South Africa, her goal was to transform a select group of impoverished undervalued young girls
and “give them an opportunity to make a difference in the world” (11). The publicity earned from
the lavish campus will give each of its graduates prestige and notoriety as graduates of the ‘fancy
Oprah school in South Africa’. And the school did receive massive publicity, in fact it received a
star studded hour long prime-time special on ABC for its opening (8). Employers and recruiters
will think that since these students have had such a large amount of money and resources being
put into their education, then they are clearly worthy of important jobs or prestigious college
admissions. This boosting of the students’ stock is furthered by the rigorous application process
that they were put through. Oprah herself emphasized the importance of picking the right
students by interviewing applicants to ensure that attendees were the best of the best. Oprah
designed this school with a lack of efficiency in order to promote the idea of the students being
special.

The boarding school element of Oprah’s project were necessary in molding the children
to fit her ideals. Many critics of the school have noted how the strict one visitor per month
prevents these children from being to see their families who deeply cared for them. However,
this was a necessary ruling to achieve Oprah’s vision. School administrators responded to these
criticisms by stating how it was necessary for preserving “a sense of school community” (9).
Oprah crafted this closed community to isolate the children from undesirable values and put in
place Oprah’s own values. She did not want visitors to challenge or block these values. These
values can be seen through the school’s OWLAGive program which involves giving back to your
community and emphasizes a sense of philanthropism, traits which are embodied by Oprah as
well. This sentiment is confirmed by Oprah referring to her students as her “children” (8),
showing how she wants to fulfill the role of a parent in raising these children with her values and
ideals. The excessive size and scope of the grounds also came under fire by critics of the school.
The grounds include a yoga studio, outdoor garden classroom, 28 buildings in total and is littered
with fine art and extravagant details (5). While this design is certainly excessive, it fits in line
with Oprah’s desire to mold the “whole girl” (5), with success in academics, mind and spirit.
Once again, this is not necessarily an effective solution, but it is not misguided.

Critics of the OWLA misrepresent Oprah’s intentions of creating a vanity project to make
a vanguard of leadership in Africa as attempting to commit an actual charitable act. Some critics
cite that a 40 million dollar school is too “extravagant” for “impoverished girls in Africa” (8).
However, the goal of Oprah was to transform these girls into something more than the average
girl in Africa, so this argument falls flat. Other critics cite how the resources could be spent
elsewhere, and “that same amount of money could improve the quality of schools, no end,
throughout entire districts and provinces” (8). However, this would not fulfill Oprah’s goal of
creating an elite vanguard of leaders. More critics still ask if this project will actually help the
communities which these students originate from, but these people seem to miss the importance
of leadership within the growing and developing South Africa. Finally, other critics are skeptical
of the donations from large organizations for OWLA and OWLA like projects. However, these
donations are minisquel in regards to the wealth of the donors (five million dollars is not much to
a billionaire). Instead they should focus on how these projects inspire these corporations to
donate and become involved in philanthropy.

Oprah’s school for girls is obviously not the optimal way to get everyone in South Africa
education, and that is fine. Her clear goal was to make a glamorous vanity project in which she
shapes future leaders of the country. That is the key point here, it is a leadership boarding school,
not a standard public school. Oprah was not misguided or efficient in making this school, but it
achieved the goals that it set out to achieve.