Oprah Winfrey gets honorary degree

Oprah Winfrey received an honorary degree from the University of the Free State in South Africa on Friday.

The 57-year-old media mogul who opened the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in Henley on Kilp, south of Johannesburg in 2007 accepted the honor from the institution which is infamous for troubled race relations after four white students were shown to humiliate black housekeeping staff five years ago.

A leaked video showed the workers eating a stew the students had mimed spiking with urine.

But at the ceremony on Friday Oprah called up the five cleaners to the stage, calling them “heroes”.

“What has happened here at Free State in terms of racial reconciliation, of peace, of harmony, of one heart understanding and opening itself to another heart is nothing short of a miracle,” she said. “It is truly what the new South Africa is all about.”

Oprah decided to accept an offer to visit the university to speak to students after reading works by Jonathan Jansen the university’s first black rector.

She recently called time on her chat show The Oprah Winfrey Show after 25 years to concentrate on her TV network, OWN.