A fired Washington Post journalist is celebrating a legal victory after an independent arbitrator ordered the newspaper to reinstate her with back pay.
The news outlet terminated opinion columnist Karen Attiah over social media posts last year after the assassination of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk. She had been at the paper for 11 years at that point.
In a post on her Substack page after the firing in September of 2025, Attiah wrote that the Post accused her of “gross misconduct” and of “endangering the physical safety of colleagues.”
The journalist said the accusations were without merit or “evidence” and rejected them “completely as false.”
She said the posts were about the country’s increasing problem with political violence.
“My most widely shared thread was not even about activist Charlie Kirk, who was horribly murdered, but about the political assassinations of Minnesota lawmaker Melisssa Hortman, her husband and her dog,” Attiah said.
“Nothing I said was new or false or disparaging – it is descriptive, and supported by data,” she added.
His ‘Own Words’
At the time, she said the post on the right-wing Kirk, which she shared a day after he was shot and killed at Utah Valley University during an outdoor rally, cited his “own words.”
The quote she attributed to Kirk in a post on Blue Sky read, “‘Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person’s slot – Charlie Kirk.’”
That wasn’t what Kirk said, but critics contend what he did say was just as despicable.
The misquote was from a show Kirk was on in 2023 where he went on a tangent about affirmative action. He targeted high-profile Black women including then-MSNBC host Joy Reid, congresswoman Shiela Jackson Lee, Supreme Court Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson and former first lady Michelle Obama.
“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 coming out and they’re saying it for us! They’re coming 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,” Kirk declared.
What he said didn’t even make sense. Jackson Lee was elected to Congress, not given an affirmative action slot and Obama is the wife of the first Black U.S. president, also not an affirmative action slot.
‘I Was Just Doing My Job
The Guardian reports the arbitrator found that after Attiah’s posts the Post editorial page editor, Adam O’Neal, contacted the newspaper’s human resources department demanding a meeting because he felt she went “beyond the pale- completely unacceptable for someone associated with Opinions.”
The newspaper’s management fired Attiah within hours of O’Neal’s eruption, the arbitrator found.
Fast-forward a year, and an independent arbitrator disagreed. On Monday, August 24, the arbitrator said the Post violated her rights as a union-protected employee, The Guardian reported and ordered the paper to reinstate her.
Attiah first posted about the decision on X Monday morning.
BREAKING:
— Karen Attiah (@KarenAttiah) August 24, 2026
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. ✊🏾https://t.co/TISoTvFFO9
She also issued a statement.
“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,” she said.
“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 … I hope that this win sends a message to journalists and media institutions everywhere that freedom of expression is always worth fighting for,” she added.
Crickets from the "free speech" and cancel culture crusaders when I was fired for speaking the truth about white men who chose to espouse hatred and violence.
— Karen Attiah (@KarenAttiah) August 24, 2026
Even more crickets now that I won the arbitration case.
Funny, innit. https://t.co/RVN6ICvwRx
‘Well Done’
Social media rallied around her and the decision.
“Just loooove an on the record ‘I told you so.’” an X poster cheered.
X user Sydette chimed in, “YEAH!!!! … I want to say happy for you… but you shouldn’t have had to deal with this in the first damn place just to do your job. I’m glad the stress is over.”
Otehrs praiser Attiah’s tenacity and grit.
“Personal liberties indeed! This is what happens when you fight for what you know is good and right. Thank you for showing little girls, boys and adults what it means to fight against the Machine! Whether it be sexism or racism! You did not kowtow or bend the knee to any of these monsters!!! Well done!”
It’s unclear what the Post plans to do and if it plans to appeal the decision.
It contends Attiah violated the company’s social media policy and was fired for cause.
Attiah was represented by the Washington-Baltimore News Guild, as are most Post employees, and the advocacy group Democracy Defenders Action.
