Washington Post ordered to reinstate opinion writer fired over Charlie Kirk posts

Arbitrator determined the Post improperly fired Karen Attiah, a union-protected employee, over social media posts

An independent arbitrator has ordered the Washington Post to rehire the high-profile opinion columnist Karen Attiah, abruptly fired by the news organization last September over comments she made on social media about Charlie Kirk , the then recently killed conservative activist.

On Monday, an arbitrator ruled that the Post had violated her rights as a union-protected employee and ordered the newspaper to reinstate her and compensate her for lost wages.

“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,” Attiah said in a statement. “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.”

A Post spokesperson said the company respects the arbitration process but declined to comment further. It’s unclear if the company plans to appeal the reinstatement ruling.

Attiah was backed by the union that represents most Post employees, the Washington-Baltimore News Guild, and Democracy Defenders Fund, a legal advocacy group co-founded by Norm Eisen. In his own statement, Eisen called it a “thunderous win” for Attiah and “a landmark decision for every journalist who refuses to be silenced”.

The Post had argued that Attiah was fired for cause after violating the company’s social media policy, which dictates that employees “must not harm the editorial integrity or journalistic reputation of The Post”.

After Kirk was shot and killed on 10 September 2025, Attiah took to social media and 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.” She also posted: “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.”

According to the arbitrator’s record of the case, Adam O’Neal , the Post’s opinion editor, had emailed the company’s head of human relations the following morning and said that Attiah’s posts were “beyond the pale- completely unacceptable for someone associated with Opinions”, calling for an urgent meeting. A few hours later, the Post’s top brass, including Will Lewis , then the publisher, met and decided that Attiah’s employment should be terminated because of her social media conduct.

O’Neal also testified in the case that Attiah’s posts created security risks for the Post and its journalists. “People were at this intense moment of violence in America, and we didn’t know what was coming next,” he said in a hearing for the case. “And we’re walking into a building that says Washington Post on top of it, and here there’s a columnist at Washington Post on this account that’s making these horrific comments and that was of deep security concern beyond the professional – beyond the publication standards and our policies.”

Attiah was emailed a copy of her termination letter – “for gross misconduct” – later that day on 11 September.

The union representing Attiah charged that she had not engaged in any kind of misconduct, “let alone gross misconduct”, and that her professional mandate included expressing opinions.

The arbitrator, Sarah Miller Espinosa, concluded that it was improper to punish Attiah on the basis of potential security threats to other Post employees.

“In the Arbitrator’s view, the Post’s witnesses’ testimony seems to attempt to hold the Grievant accountable for the actions of bad actors who were posting threats against her and The Post on social media,” she wrote. “To imply that the Grievant’s posts were justifiable provocation for threatened criminal acts or that the Grievant’s employment may be terminated for just cause because bad actors threatened The Post is unsupportable.”

Calling the Post’s termination of Attiah “absolutely disproportional”, she concluded: “The Post’s rushed decision to terminate the Grievant approximately four hours after O’Neal became aware of the Grievant’s posts … is not supported by good and sufficient cause.”