A Sao Paulo court has ordered a university to pay $23,600 to a female student who was briefly expelled after she wore a pink minidress to school.
The case became a topic of national discussion in the South American country where skimpy clothing is normal on beaches and in nightclubs, but less so in school and elsewhere.
Geisy Arruda – whose dress provoked jeers and insults from hundreds of fellow students last November – was readmitted to Bandeirante University after the institution reversed a decision to expel her over the tumult under pressure from the Education Ministry and negative media attention.
A Sao Paulo court said the civil court in Sao Bernardo do Campo ruled that award was enough to compensate Arruda for damage she suffered without endangering the financial health of the private school.
Arruda’s lawyers said they would appeal. They are seeking $591,000 for what they say was her trampled dignity.
AFP
Facebook seems to be everywhere these days: it reached half a billion users in July, its value is soaring and the inevitable film is coming out in October.
While the site has become synonymous with social networking in the US and Europe, the story is very different in Brazil, where Google’s Orkut is king of the hill. But as Brazilians become more globally connected, Facebook is making inroads into Latin America’s largest economy.
“If you’re in Brazil and you’re not on Orkut, you’re nobody”, says Alex Banks, managing director of Brazil and vice president of Latin America at web research firm ComScore. “It’s incredibly popular, incredibly well used, and it is the Brazilian social network.”
Orkut drew 28.9m visitors in July, according to ComScore – more than three-quarters of Brazil’s internet audience, and more than the combined number of visitors to Facebook and Twitter that month. ComScore estimates that Brazilians spend 14 per cent of their total time online on Orkut, and the average user visits the site 37 times a month. (more…)
