You can’t say she wasn’t well intentioned. Oprah Winfrey opened a school (excuse me, a “leadership academy) in South Africa for the poorest smart kids the land had to offer. She was going to give these girls every advantage in the world in the hopes that they would become great leaders, or something. I don’t know, I didn’t read the press release. Maybe she was training to send them to the moon. Either way, the end story here is that it all when awry when an overzealous dorm matron tried to turn the educational experience into an episode of “Girls Gone Wild: South African Leadership Academy Edition.”

Oprah called the experience the worst of her life. When something so noble ends up so awful, how can you possibly turn it around in the eyes of the unforgiving public? Easy, one quick dose of The Spin-Cycle.

How to turn it around? There are three different, distinct possibilities. Each more likely to work than the next and all good enough to make Oprah’s frown turn a complete 360-degree spin.

Capitalize on your strengths…ok, so running a school for poor African kids isn’t your forte. Really, that’s something you never would’ve known until you tried it, Oprah. For instance, how would I be as a black talk show host? I don’t know, because that’s one job I haven’t had yet (I refuse to do blackface on primetime TV).  You tried the school thing, it failed.  Now, the way to rebound is to actually do something you are good at. Again, you wouldn’t know what that is until you tried something. Fortunately, your failed school experiment did show us what you are good at. That’s running an institution where the members are sexually assaulted and scarred for life. That’s good, we can work with that.

Obviously you can’t set up another school, but there is one institution that requires your skill set… prison. That’s right, instead of running a school for the underprivileged; you can run a prison for the over-perverted. You can help America rest easy this night by letting us know that you are planning to treat the perpetrators with the same intense treatment you reserved for income-challenged kids, only this time, you mean it. This is one instance where “surprise sex” will be used for good.

Claim the abuse was intentional- this will draw critics at first, but they will understand once you explain your reasoning. You see, your goal was to give these children the world and make smart people like you understand that the world revolves around people in show business. Look at the people changing the world. 30 Rock guest star Al Gore invented the internet and global warming, Angelina Jolie and Madonna are feeding the hungry by adopting them one at a time, and George Clooney and Natalie Portman are talking to people about all sorts of things no one really cares about. Oprah knows TV is the key for these kids but there just aren’t many chances for underprivileged kids to find the limelight.

That’s why she decided to allow the sexual-abuser to hold a position of power. That way it was more likely one of those “To Catch a Predator” shows would’ve caught wind of it and filmed an ep at the school. That kind of publicity could have given at least a few of those girls a quick 15 seconds of fame and who knows where it could’ve gone. A conservative bet would be at least a three-episode arc on Heroes.

Abuse provides for the future- Oprah can spin this whole thing by painting this misfortune as a chance for the girls to become empowered. One of the most popular, lucrative and empowering professions for young women is stripping (and, in a related sense, porn). Unfortunately, you have to be sexually abused to work in either industry. If these girls waited until later in life to be sexually abused, they could miss the very narrow window they have to really make it in the sextertainment industry.

Don’t worry about people getting indignant about this one, Oprah, because people are just ignorant and don’t understand. Of course it wasn’t your intention for all of those girls to grow up and become strippers/porn stars. You merely wanted them to have every option available and this one would’ve been lost forever if they didn’t have a background that included sexual abuse.

Lee Ledbetter Ivy is a self-proclaimed public relations guru. He can be reached at lee.ledbetter.ivy@gmail.com.