The former headmistress of Oprah Winfrey’s Leadership Academy for Girls located in South Africa filed a defamation lawsuit against the widely popular TV talk-show host and multi-media maven.

According to the legal papers quoted online, the civil suit was filed against Winfrey for having “launched what amounted to a defamatory campaign” against Nomvuyo Mzamane last year when Winfrey made comments to the media during the time that a dorm matron at the school was charged with assaulting and abusing students.

The papers added that Winfrey’s statements had implied that Mzamane was "untrustworthy, failed the students of the academy, did not care about the students at the academy, knew of alleged physical and sexual abuse at the academy and participated in a cover-up of the alleged abuse," it was reported.

Mzamane sued the talk show host for defamation, false light and infliction of emotional distress; while Winfrey later sought to have the claims dismissed.

But Reuters reports that last Monday, a Pennsylvania district court allowed the case to go on trial ruling, in a 126-page decision, that there is “sufficient evidence in the record to satisfy the clear and convincing evidence standard for actual malice.”

Mzamane was recruited to run the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in 2006. The school, which formally opened in 2007 at a cost of about $40 million, was built as Winfrey’s pledge to African president Nelson Mandela in 2002. She was reported to have personally interviewed many of the South African girls from low-income families who applied for the initial 150 places at the school.

In 2007, the boarding school made international headlines when an accusation from a group of students at Winfrey’s school surfaced that a dorm matron was sexually abusing them and assaulting them.

Mzamane was soon put on administrative leave pending an investigation; while the dorm matron, Virginia Makopo, eventually pleaded not guilty to abusing and assaulting six girls.

Later, Winfrey was reported to have said that she had "lost confidence in (Mzamane's) ability to run this school. And therefore, she will not be returning to this school."

It was later reported that since her termination, Mzamane has “not been able to find comparable work” and is said to have been “suffering from depression, anxiety and insomnia.” In the same report, Mzamane is said to be asking for $50,000 for each of five different claims, including: defamation by innuendo and intentional affliction of emotional distress. She has also filed for unspecified punitive damages.

A jury will soon have to determine whether the talk-show maven defamed Mzamane when the trial begins on March 27 in Philadelphia.

Winfrey's lawyers have reportedly said that their client has rearranged her TV production schedule to attend the trial. Reports also noted that Winfrey appears likely to testify.