An independent arbitrator has ordered the Washington Post to reinstate Karen Attiah, finding the newspaper wrongly terminated the columnist over comments she made following the shooting death of Charlie Kirk.
The Washington Post didn't have good and sufficient cause to terminate Attiah in September, arbitrator Sarah Miller Espinosa wrote in her decision. She also concluded that Attiah didn't engage in gross misconduct. In addition to reinstatement, the arbitrator ordered the newspaper to compensate Attiah with full back pay and benefits.
"The penalty of termination imposed on the grievant was absolutely disproportional," Miller Espinosa wrote in her decision.
Instead of firing Attiah, the newspaper could have conducted an investigation and interview with the columnist to understand her posts and could have asked her to delete the comments, Miller Espinosa said.
"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 Monday.
The Washington Post respects the arbitration process, a spokesperson for the newspaper said.
Kirk, a political activist and commentator who co-founded Turning Point USA, a conservative organization focused on student mobilization, was fatally shot at a speaking event in Utah on Sept. 10. After his death, Attiah made several comments on social media.
"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," Attiah said in one post on the social-media site Bluesky.
"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," Attiah said in another post.
The Washington Post fired Attiah that month, saying that her posts were gross misconduct and disparaged white men. Days later, Attiah, who was represented by the Washington-Baltimore News Guild and Democracy Defenders Fund, filed a grievance saying she was wrongfully terminated.
"My commentary in general was about how America responds to acts of political violence, and quite often that response is different depending on the identity of the perpetrators of that violence," Attiah said during an arbitration hearing.
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