About a month ago, three long-time employees of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro’s relations department were fired after the administration found they had been operating a side photography business out of the college. Now, after three long weeks, the “UNCG Three” have been cleared of all felony charges.

While the UNCG community rejoices, the affected staff members will still have to fight to return to their jobs, and as the dust settles there are still several questions that remain unanswered.Why were they really fired? Did they really deserve 22 felony charges? Should the case have been made public record? Could this happen at Guilford?

Their actions not only cost them their jobs, but could also have cost them their freedom. They were charged with a total of 22 felony counts, some of which included  multiple counts of obtaining equipment through false pretenses.

Two of the employees also falsified their time sheets, allegedly to cover work they did for the side business while on the job, while their supervisor knowingly approved them.

“When we discovered that we had employees operating a for-profit business out of the university, on university time and with university equipment, we were obligated to do two things,” said UNCG Chancellor Linda Brady. “First, we had to take disciplinary action because we are stewards of taxpayer dollars and the public’s trust. Seccond, we were legally obligated to report what we found to law enforcement authorities. We weren’t seeking criminal penalties because that’s not our role.”

The district attorney’s office determined that all three employees were guilty of multiple Class H felonies, which could have landed them in prison. Fortunately for them, the charges have recently been dropped. Instead of facing jail time, David Wilson and Chris English will now be expected to pay back the money they made while using UNCG’s facilities and equipment to run their business.

“The university may have been able to handle (the case) in house, but then they would have set a precedent for others to feel entitled to doing the same thing,” said Zachary Morgan II ‘14. “Colleges are already strapped as it is, without their staff stealing from them.”

Now people in the UNCG community are questioning whether or not the UNCG three was truly deserving of these charges and whether or not the University should have taken the issue into the public sphere by reporting the crimes to the authorities.

Several other UNCG faculty have suggested that Paul Mason, UNCG’s vice chancellor, was ill-prepared to manage the situation, and that perhaps grievances previously lodged against Mason by members of the UNCG three were the true reason they were fired.

This raises the question: could this sort of thing happen at a private institution like Guilford College? According to Brady’s statement, the issue lies in the fact that UNCG is a public university that relies on state funding for support.

While the community waits for answers to these questions, one thing is for certain: it may take months of private meetings before the community knows anything for sure, and it could take even longer for the three affected in this case to move on while the University takes its time in making its final decision on the matter.