An arbitrator has ordered The Washington Post to reinstate opinion columnist Karen Attiah, ruling that the newspaper lacked sufficient cause to fire her over social media posts following the September 2025 killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
The decision by arbitrator Sarah Miller Espinosa also requires the Post to provide Attiah with full back pay and lost benefits. Espinosa found that the newspaper failed to establish that Attiah engaged in “gross misconduct” and did not have “good and sufficient cause” to terminate her, in violation of its collective bargaining agreement with the Washington-Baltimore News Guild.
Attiah, who had worked at the Post for 11 years, was dismissed Sept. 11, 2025, one day after Kirk was shot and killed at a speaking event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
The outlet’s termination letter cited two of Attiah’s posts on Bluesky. In one, she wrote that “refusing to tear my clothes and smear ashes on my face in performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence” was not the same as violence. In another, she wrote that part of what makes America violent is the expectation that people “perform care, empty goodness and absolution for white men who espouse hatred and violence.”
“Your public comments on social media regarding the death of Charlie Kirk violate The Post’s social media policies, harm the integrity of our organization and potentially endanger the physical safety of our staff,” the termination letter stated.
Espinosa said Attiah’s posts were “ill-timed” given the “fraught atmosphere” surrounding Kirk’s killing but did not constitute gross misconduct.
“The Washington Post did not have good and sufficient cause to terminate the employment of the grievant, Karen Attiah,” she added.
Attiah stated that “this decision confirms what we’ve said from the start: I was doing my job as an opinion journalist, and doing that job is not misconduct.”
“After spending over a decade of my career at the Post as an editor and an opinion columnist focusing on race, gender and global human rights, I’m relieved to finally have that record set straight,” she said.
