by Marc Burleigh

SAO PAULO, BRAZIL - Brazilian officials on Tuesday were investigating the harassment of a 20-year-old woman at a Sao Paulo university whose short dress provoked jeers and insults by hundreds of fellow students.

Geisy Arruda was readmitted to Bandeirante University on Monday, after the institution reversed a decision to expel her over the tumult under pressure from the education ministry and negative media attention.

The incident grabbed national headlines and sparked a debate in Brazil, a majority Catholic country in which skimpy clothes are commonly worn on its beaches and in nightclubs, while more modest attire is standard in schools and
workplaces.

The university had initially justified its decision to bar Arruda from her tourism course by claiming she showed "a flagrant lack of respect for ethical principles, academic dignity and morality."

The incident began October 22, when Arruda wore a short pink short dress to class.

Around 800 students mobbed around her, jeering and calling her a "whore".

Some posted cellphone videos of the scene on the Internet. Arruda subsequently required the protection of university guards to move around campus.

The vice-rector of the university, Ellis Brown, explained to a news conference on Tuesday that the negative reports surrounding the matter prompted Arruda's expulsion to be quashed.

Brown blamed Arruda for the initial move to expel her, saying she did not accept the escort by guards - and that it was her allegedly provocative behavior and not her dress that was the problem.

"Hundreds of girls go to the college in make-up and miniskirts. Geisy's expulsion was not based on her style of dress," he said.

Arruda has denied being overtly flirtatious or sexual in her behavior on campus.

Brown said the case should not have become a national news story.

"If she hadn't taken the matter outside, it would have been closed within 24 hours and would not have caused an uproar among 60,000 students," he said.

As it stands, he added, Arruda would not be penalized in any way and would be able to attend classes and tests as normal - although she would not be getting any personal bodyguards.

State officials said, regardless of the decision to reinstate Arruda, an investigation would go ahead to see whether she had been the victim of defamation and sequestration, according to the G1 news website.

"We are going to clear up the crimes that might have been committed by the other students. The new decision (by the university to reverse Arruda's expulsion) has nothing to do with that," a law enforcement official in charge of women's rights, Angela de Andrade Ferreira Ballarini, said.

Brazil's education ministry has also given Bandeirante University 10 days to explain its original decision to expel Arruda. --AFP