The Washington Post must reinstate columnist Karen Attiah, an arbitrator ruled, after the newspaper terminated her employment over social media posts made in the aftermath of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk's assassination. Arbitrator Sarah Miller Espinosa determined that The Post "did not have good and sufficient cause" for the firing and that the termination "violated" Attiah's labor agreement, according to The New York Times.
Espinosa concluded that "The Washington Post failed to establish the grievant engaged in gross misconduct." Attiah announced her legal victory on social media, stating, "The Washington Post fired me last year for speaking the truth after Charlie Kirk's killing. I fought back. I'm happy to announce: I won my case against the Washington Post. They have been ordered to reinstate me immediately."
Attiah told The Times she was "relieved to finally have that record set straight," adding, "This decision confirms what we’ve said from the start: I was doing my job as an opinion writer, and this was wrongful termination."
A spokesperson for The Washington Post stated that the paper respects the arbitration process but declined to comment further. Attiah had not immediately responded to requests for comment.
Attiah's termination followed social media posts she made on the platform Bluesky concerning Kirk's assassination. In one post, she wrote, "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." In another, she stated, "Part of what keeps America so violent is the insistence that people perform care, empty goodness and absolution for White men who espouse hatred and violence."
Critics also accused Attiah of misquoting Kirk in a post where she attributed to him the statement, "Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a White person's slot." On a July 2023 episode of "The Charlie Kirk Show," Kirk actually said, "If we would have said three weeks ago [...] that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama, and Sheila Jackson Lee, and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative-action picks, we would have been called racist. But now they're comin' out and they're saying it for us! They're comin' out, and they're saying, 'I'm only here because of affirmative action.' Yeah, we know. You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a White person's slot to go be taken somewhat seriously."
Following the backlash, Attiah revealed her termination in a letter that described her posts as "unacceptable" and "gross misconduct." She filed a legal challenge against The Post last fall, and in June, it was announced that she and the newspaper would enter arbitration. The assassination of Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, occurred in July 2023.