Washington Post ordered to rehire fired columnist

WASHINGTON, DC

This file photo shows former Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah. (AP photo)

The Washington Post was ordered on Aug. 24 to reinstate columnist Karen Attiah, who was fired over social media posts she wrote in the aftermath of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

Kirk was shot dead last September on a Utah college campus, sparking a wave of grief among conservatives and threats of a clampdown on the “radical left” from President Donald Trump.

Attiah wrote on social media afterward that she would not display sadness for Kirk’s killing and shared the activist’s past racist comments about Black women.

She was later fired, with the Post accusing her of “gross misconduct” and of violating its social media policies, according to the paper’s own reporting.

An arbitrator ordered the Post on Aug. 24 to rehire Attiah and compensate her with back pay, writing in the decision that the Post “did not have good and sufficient cause” for her dismissal.

Attiah wrote on X that she was “happy” at the decision, saying she had been forced out for “speaking the truth.”

The Post said it respected the arbitration process but declined to comment further.

Attiah had worked at the publication for 11 years and noted that she was the “last remaining Black full-time opinion columnist at the Post” at the time of her firing.

In her posts about Kirk, she shared his racist claims that Black women lack “brain processing power” and therefore require help from diversity programs.