Whether it’s fair or not, Brazil is best known for beautiful women, skimpy bikinis, the wildness of Carnaval, and the Brazillian wax. But despite the sexy generalizations, the entire country has erupted in debate over a little red dress.
CNN reported Geisy Arruda, a 20-year-old student at the Bandeirante University (also known as Uniban), was escorted out of a campus building by police after her short red dress drew excessive heckling from her fellow students on Oct. 22. The dress she wore to class had three-quarter-length sleeves and fit loosely until the bottom, where it fit snugly over her butt and upper thighs. When she was escorted out, she wore a long white lab coat.
Cellphone videos of the incident quickly went viral on YouTube and Arruda was expelled. It wasn’t long before protests were staged on both sides of the controversy. This week, the public outcry in Arruda’s favor won-out and Uniban reluctantly allowed her to return. However, she had not returned to classes as of Tuesday.
“The University Council [which expelled Arruda] followed procedure and was very brave because it upheld the rules of the university, even with all the attention,” Uniban Assistant Rector Ellis Brown said. “The decision to readmit the student is not an admission of a mistake but a look at the issue from another perspective.”
Brown also insists that it was not the dress that was the problem, it was Arruda’s behavior. She was apparently entering class as if she was in a Carnaval parade, hiking up the dress and twirling to show it off. Arruda has denied this claim.
Arruda told CNN affiliate TV Record, “I was the victim, so I intend to keep going [to classes]. I don’t want to cause any more problems. I only want to study. I want to enter the classroom, sit down and study, do my tests and go to the next course.”
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