by Mildred Europa Taylor, Face2FaceAfrica
An independent arbitrator ordered The Washington Post to rehire a columnist it fired last year over social media posts about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
In her ruling on Thursday, the arbitrator, Sarah Miller Espinosa, said the newspaper lacked sufficient grounds to fire Karen Attiah, who was the last Black full-time member of the Post’s opinion desk at the time, according to the Associated Press. The arbitrator also ordered the Post to award Attiah full back pay and lost benefits.
Kirk, an influential Trump ally who at age 18 set up Turning Point USA, died in a shooting while speaking at a Utah campus event on September 10.
Turning Point USA was a student organization that spread conservative ideas on college campuses. Kirk, a right-wing American activist and podcaster, often made controversial remarks about politics, race, and gender, and was critical of the Black Lives Matter movement on college campuses. He and Trump usually dismissed the need for sensible gun control as a necessary part of the solution to the rampant gun violence in the U.S.
Following the fatal shooting, the newspaper’s only Black woman opinion writer shared a series of contentious statements on her Bluesky account.
“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,” one of the posts read.
“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.
On September 11, Attiah was emailed a termination letter which accused 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.
However, in a June 4 hearing, Espinosa found that the newspaper failed to establish that Attiah “engaged in gross misconduct”, adding that it “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.”
Attiah was represented by the Democracy Defenders Fund and Washington-Baltimore News Guild, and both welcomed the ruling. The Democracy Defenders Fund described it as a landmark moment for press freedom, “confirming that corporate media institutions cannot use retaliatory discipline to silence journalists who address uncomfortable truths,” as reported by the AP.
The termination of Attiah was part of a broader wave of dismissals across multiple professions following public commentary on Kirk’s assassination. These actions sparked intense debate surrounding First Amendment protections.
A spokesperson for the newspaper said it respects the arbitration process and declined to comment further. The ruling comes as people continue to question the direction of the Post under billionaire Jeff Bezos, who announced in February of last year that the opinion section would redirect its editorial focus toward topics surrounding free markets and personal liberties.
What did Attiah’s Bluesky posts really say?
The Black columnist made several posts on September 10, besides the posts mentioned above. One post read, “For everyone saying political violence has no place in this country…Remember two Democratic legislators were shot in Minnesota just this year. And America shrugged and moved on.”
In a different thread posted on the same day, Attiah said, “I wish I had hope for gun control and that I could believe ‘political violence has no place in this country.’ But we live in a country that accepts white children being massacred by gun violence. Not just accepts, but worships violence.”
In another, she wrote, “Political violence has no place in this country…But we will also do nothing to curb the availability of the guns used to carry out said violence. The denial and empty rhetoric is learned helplessness—because the truth is..[…]America is sick and there is no cure in sight.”
Later, she said, “Because America, especially white America is not going to do what it needs to do to get rid of the guns in their country. It will be thoughts and prayers, ‘violence has no place’ out of a performance of goodness, not out of the resolve to convince their communities to disarm.”
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