An arbitrator has ordered The Washington Post to reinstate a Black opinion writer fired over social media posts about violent white men following last year’s killing of Charlie Kirk.
The ruling Thursday said the newspaper did not have sufficient cause to terminate Karen Attiah, who at the time was the last Black full-time member of the Post’s opinion desk. The arbitrator, Sarah Miller Espinosa, also ordered the Post to award Attiah full back pay and lost benefits.
Kirk, who rose from a teenage conservative campus activist to become a top podcaster and ally of President Donald Trump, was shot and killed Sept. 10 during a public appearance at Utah Valley University. He was 31.
Kirk launched Turning Point USA in 2012 and made provocative statements about race, gender and politics. He was critical of the Black Lives Matter movement on college campuses and called George Floyd, the Black man whose 2020 murder at the hands of Minneapolis police sparked protests, a “scumbag.”
His death elicited a torrent of comments about him, both pro and con, and some who spoke out against him in the days after the killing faced sanctions or dismissal at work.
Attiah posted after Kirk’s killing
After Kirk’s killing, Attiah, the founding global opinion editor for the Post and the newspaper’s only Black female opinion writer, made several posts to her Bluesky account.
One post read: “Refusing to tear my clothes and smear ashes on my face in performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence is … not the same as violence.”
“If anything, the rush to coddle violent white men is self-protective — that we know they are not used to feeling vulnerable and mortal — and will react violently out of fear. And we will all suffer,” read another post.
Attiah was emailed a termination letter on Sept. 11, accusing her of “gross misconduct.”
“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 letter read.
But Espinosa found that the newspaper, in a June 4 hearing, failed to establish that Attiah “engaged in gross misconduct” and that the Post “did not have good and sufficient cause to terminate” her employment, which violated the collective bargaining agreement with the newspaper’s union.
“After wrongfully firing me last year, an independent arbitrator has ordered the @washingtonpost to reinstate me immediately, with back pay,” Attiah posted on Instagram on Monday. “It’s been a year-long fight, but this is a victory for journalists everywhere. More to come soon.”
Ruling welcomed as a landmark moment
The Democracy Defenders Fund, which, along with Washington-Baltimore News Guild, represented Attiah, said the ruling marks a landmark moment for press freedom, “confirming that corporate media institutions cannot use retaliatory discipline to silence journalists who address uncomfortable truths.”
The Post said in a statement that it respects the arbitration process, but declined to comment further.
At the time, Attiah’s firing was among dozens of others across various professions stemming from comments about Kirk’s assassination, igniting a debate over First Amendment rights as Trump vowed retribution for remarks he considers disparaging.
The National Association of Black Journalists, the nation’s largest professional advocacy organization for journalists of color, added at the time that Attiah’s firing had “raised an alarm about the erosion of Black voices across the media.”
During the organization’s annual convention this month in Atlanta, the NABJ gave The Post a “Thumbs Down Award” because the newspaper has laid off Black journalists and eliminated race and culture beats.
“When the NABJ raises concerns about the treatment of Black journalists, we do so because the decisions news organizations make have real consequences for our members, our profession and the communities we serve,” NABJ President Errin Haines said Monday in a statement supporting Attiah.
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